Unveiled Murderer
by foreverknights28
Summary: Threatening Anonymous letters...Ten People..One Murderer ...one Mystery..
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: so** okay, I know I've begun many stories already, and still I'm starting from a new one but can't help it. I really liked this idea so I wanted it to pen it down before it gets faded away like many of my stories. Okay so I have already thought and written this story and will update it on a regular basis (let's Hope I succeed in it). It's a genuine attempt of writing an investigative story, so If anything goes wrong hope you don't end up murdering me.

Also the whole story resulted because I read _"Study in Scarlet", "A sign of Four", "ABC Murders" "Murder in Library" a_nd many more detective novels back to back so this was bound to happen J

So If you all felt like murdering me you can surely go ahead :D

**Disclaimer:** I don't own CID and none of its characters.

Also in this story the characters from CID wouldn't be essaying their roles which they do in the serial. In this story they would be in complete new avtar with different profession and in slight change of behaviour (in some people a drastic change of behaviour)

So if you are ready then only go ahead with this story otherwise I would advise you to restrict yourselves from reading it!

**AN: You have being warned!**

**...**

**Characters**

***Tarika:** Age : 32 : Started her career as Forensic expert's assistant but soon she realized that it's not her thing so switched back to the law field, did her best in it, raised to fame as prosecution lawyer. She is quite determined, intelligent and calm in demeanor in her professional life.

***Abhijeet:** Age:33 : Ex- CID Officer. He retired at the age of 30 due to a massive accident while apprehending the culprit, it resulted that his right leg got severed injured which cost him to limp while walking due to which he has to quit his job due to proven medically unfit, he is now retired and kind off work as trainer for the new officers. Short-tempered and Angry man but at the same time a very efficient officer.

***Ananya:** Tarika's Childhood friend who is fashion designer, got married to a quiet rich business tycoon and Now is a joint partner in their chain of companies.

***Mayank:** Ananya's husband, a business tycoon.

...

**"Unveiled Murderer"**

**Part I**

Sunlight was bathing the opposite roof, just outside the window. It played on the tiles, reflecting each and every corner of the room, leaving no room for darkness. She, who was seated just across the window appreciated the light, for casting itself over her writing table, thus sparing her the need of switching the lamp on in the morning . It was one of the last mornings of a summer that had been hot and shiny, and it was still enthusiastically luminous until it would eventually have to resolve in the greyer shades of upcoming monsoon and then winter.

For the moment, leaving this entire aside Tarika had other business to care about. As a lawyer (and at thirty-two she was one of the best hopes of her generation), the reading of the morning papers, happily supplied with tons of extra coffee, was a ritual. After this she has to glance on the crucial cases and upcoming trials which were scheduled in her upcoming months on which she was working on also she had to survey her colleagues' trials.

When the papers were read through, they were folded and set aside on a tablet, after that the morning was passed while checking the letters or any drafts from the clients. Occasionally there used to be a thanks letter from time to time by her clients who she has helped in the past; she peered over them while finishing her coffee.

The chair's back was soft and deep behind her back, and the sunlight warm onto her cheek, bathing her sitting position in an agreeable glow and she was slowly nodding off in a drowsy manner when she was suddenly roused from that sleepiness by the sight of a familiar writing on one of the envelopes. She blinked, and for a second or so contemplated the letter disbelievingly she had not received anything written from Ananya since that postcard of her friend's honeymoon five years before. Why bother writing when it was so much simpler to pick up one's phone or an email that was Ananya's point, and she was rich enough not to care about telephone and internet bills.

Astonishment reached its peak when, Tarika found multiple sheets inside clumsily folded, clipped by Ananya's scrawl-like writing.

_'Dear Tarika,'_ it said,

_'We are having a problem here.'_ (Tarika frowned at this and read more attentively; when Ananya didn't chat for half an hour before coming to the point and was actually serious from the start, it was necessarily important.)

_'I thought that as a lawyer, you'd have enough experience on such matters to offer us help, while keeping the essential discretion. You've probably seen in the papers (I know how carefully you read them) that we have welcomed in one of our secondary residences a group of scientists and lawyers who needed a quiet location for a common study – don't expect me to tell you what it's about, it's not my business to ask. Mayank and I knew some of them, and they demanded that house particularly, our ancestral villa in shimla – though I think what they want is discretion rather than isolation._

_"Ancestral home in Shimla"_ Tarika thought about it, the choice was a good one. In the past she has visited that place and it was good old home, backed into the woods, miles away from any inhabited place, since the only neighboring house had been abandoned by its owners more than ten years in the past, the only access to it was a fragile bridge of string and crossing a ravine. Tarika set her thoughts aside and started reading the letter again.

_'The first problem showed up two or three days before that, by the morning post, in the shape of an anonymous letter warning us not to accept our guests there – under the pretext that crimes had been committed in the house before – I'm sure you remember about that – and it was now under a curse.'_

_'Of course, we didn't pay any attention to it, and the guests arrived and the study began as formerly planned. The night immediately after that, however, more anonymous letters were slid under people's doors: ours, and one of our guests', both on the third floor. They were not found until morning, and the messages they contained were mostly threatening us for having overstepped the first notice and calling the house's curse upon us or something of the kind._

_'It's didn't stop there. Every morning following there were similar letters to be found on the bedrooms' threshold – nobody has been accepted and some of us have received two, or several more. The real trouble is, the author, or Poison Pen, or whatever, is necessarily someone of the house. All the notes have been found inside the building, during night-time, when the gate and doors are closed, which means nobody can get in. So it must have been one of them._

_'There hasn't been any real incident, but I don't feel good about this. Mayank and I are leaving for USA at the end of the week, and we don't like to leave the whole of them in the house with only one or two menservants, with perhaps a lunatic in the lot. And the letters are getting worse. They were merely menacing at first, but now they've become really frightening – I'm afraid the person who wrote them is mentally unbalanced and might turn out dangerous._

_'I know you're a busy person, but I would really appreciate it if you visited us before the end of the week. Your being a lawyer provides you with a good cover since there are two others among us, and your experience could be of some help – if not to act, at least to give us some advice. Be sure to call as soon as you receive this–"_

Tarika reached the end of the letter with mixed feelings. In a postscript, Ananya explained that she had rather not call or mailed her, for fear the culprit should overhear or hacked thus by guessing her intentions, whereas a letter posted at the nearest village was not likely to rouse suspicion; Tarika was really impressed by Ananya's such thought After all Ananya had an overdeveloped sense of drama. 'As a lawyer', and as a "Ex-Forensic Assistant" Tarika had witnessed worse than anonymous letters and cases.

When she read the letter through a second time, she felt the matter deserved to be looked into further. That a Poison Pen should be counted among guests assembled over a secret study in a lonesome mansion was an interesting circumstance, and she could not very well decide of the gravity of the situation 'till she had read the letters and agreed, there was no harm in visiting one's old childhood friends, anyhow.

When she dialled the number Ananya had scribbled on the first sheet's right-hand corner, however, the composed voice of a manservant at the other end of the line responded to her inquiries that Ananya Sahani was not a home presently, and could he take a message.

Tarika paused for a second and then decided to tackle the matter professionally, she replied, "Yes – this is Tarika. Please tell Ananya that I have received her letter, and will visit her tomorrow in the morning." That was innocent enough; even if the message was repeated publicly, it could not mean anything serious. "If she wishes to speak anything about it, she can call me back, she knows my number."

"Certainly, mam. Thank you for calling. Have a good day."

"Thank you.."

The click of hanging up on the other end, and Tarika's hand on the receiver hesitated a second before putting it down. She was not altogether certain that this had been the wisest solution she could take.

...

After postponing her meetings, the very next day, Tarika took an early flight to shimla. Ananya's driver was already waiting for her at the airport, after a drive of an hour or two she reached the villa. Tarika's 's first surprise, in reaching the villa, was to discover that the ravine, which previously forbid any car from passing on, had in the interim been partly filled in, and an actual bridge of stone had been built over it to replace the fragile former one, thus allowing her drive up directly to the mansion. The second surprise was to find the building grown with two wings, one on each side; it now resembled one of these old Elizabethan houses overseas in England, smaller in proportion, but similar in shape.

That, she thought as she pulled up below the steps was a relief: with those differences and the ten years' time that had elapsed in between, the mansion differed enough from the one she used to know .

The front door was opened, almost before she had time to knock, by a butler in a livrée, with a Jeeves-like poker face and the composed voice that had answered her on the phone. He gave a stiff little bow and said, drenched in cold politeness, "Miss Tarika? Please come in, Ananya Mam'has been waiting for you."

Tarika was then ushered inside, the doors banging shut behind her, in a quick succession of rooms passing by, until they were at last met halfway through by one very enthusiastic Ananya. Arms were flung around Tarika's neck, a high-pitched voice's greetings, and for a second they were eighteen all over again, back to being best friends in school.

However, when they sat together in her bureau – a large, well-furnished room with sunlight floundering in through the tall window, Ananya recovered all the seriousness and noble mien proper to the heir of the Sahani family. She got out a file from a drawer and handed it over, without a word; forced back into her position of a lawyer, Tarika received it and inspected the letters.

Somebody Mayank, probably; Ananya was too absent-minded to think about it – had been sensible enough to classify and date them. In shape they were all the same – black, neatly-printed letters on white, rectangular cards – and in message they varied but little: from the very first '_**Do not accept that study into your house'** _to the last theme of '_**Thou hast been warned',**_ the evolution was only what Ananya had described to her in her letter – if merely menacing at first, the writer seemed to have become exasperated by the lack of reaction, and the threats had turned grim and dark in proportion.

No misspelling or grammar mistakes that she could see, and the cards were such that they could have been printed out of anyone's computer. The only peculiarity resided perhaps in that few letters were impersonal or generally applicable; the message aimed almost each time at a particular somebody, which tended to confirm the hypothesis of their author's being one of the guests.

"Is there anything more on these cards here, anything you can see," Ananya asked greedily, "that might turn out as a clue? Anything that could help us discover the author of them?"

"Only that they've been printed out of a computer, which is rather clever," Tarika observed. "In a book, if one was to write an anonymous letter, one would cut letters out of some daily and paste them on a sheet of paper so as to form a message without having to write anything, but in reality that's far too easily traceable. Even if one burnt the newspapers there would always remain suspicious pieces of articles that had unbeknownst flown through the window or a significant amount of ashes in the hearth. But a file in a computer – deleted with one click, and no trace to be found. It adds to the dangerous side, if anything. Is that all there is?"

"All that I know of," Ananya answered. "Tell me, Tarika – what do you think? What are we to do? Is it worth calling for the police–" (anxiously) "–because that's precisely what I want to avoid. Or some paid detective or ex-officer ? Anything?"

At the mention of ex-officer, Tarika's face had darkened, and for a second they had the same person in mind. Then, slowly, "If you really want no scandal, I think it's better not to call for the police yet. Our man or woman doesn't seem dangerous to speak of, but he or she may become so."

"Then what?"' Because we can't stay like that. Mayank and I are leaving for USA on Sunday, It's an important business deal and–"

"–and you can't leave with an unmatched maniac ready to slaughter half your guests, I suppose." Tarika was silent for a second, pause after which she added more thoughtfully, "When exactly did you receive that first letter?"

"By morning post the day just before the study started – that's Monday of the past week."

"And then every night after that?"

"Just so." Ananya shifted restlessly in her chair; she looked anxious and nervous about the whole business. "Most of them were slid under bedroom doors to be found in the morning, but sometimes they were found in a drawer, or under one's plate–"

"Ananya, why don't we install CCTv.." but before Tarika could complete her sentence Ananya interrupted.

"Tarika, we did do that but it..it was a big failure. The Day we decided that we should fit the Cameras, the next moment we received a letter threatening us that If we put such things up, then the "pen poison" would murder someone and also he would provide some facts to media which can soil our reputation.." Ananya replied hesitantly. she made a vague, rather dejected wave of the hand, hastily checked; then a more decisive look settled on her face, and she bent slightly forward across her desk. Hands brought together on her leather tablet, fingertip joined to fingertip, she for once looked thoroughly like the businesswoman she was meant to be.

"Do understand, Tarika – this cannot go on. The Sahani's are a rich and respectable family, and we can't – I can't – allow a common criminal to bring scandal to tarnish out reputation."

That was an aspect of Ananya Tarika was not able to understand. To her mind, better risk the publicity of a police inspection than murder done – but perhaps that was only the argument of a lawyer, to whom scandals brought clients.

"Look – I'll tell you what," she said finally. "I'll stay over 'till the end of the week; and if there has been no alteration by Sunday we'll decide of what to do – whether this requires dealing any professional help or not."

Ananya beamed at so brilliantly Tarika was immediately convinced that this solution was what she had tended to all the while, but she felt all the more patient and amused that she had missed the frivolity of her former conversations with her best friend. As annoying and boy-hunter as Ananya had been at seventeen, she had been her most precious best friend and the one person she could confide in – yet, what with her own life-taking job and Ananya's constant travelling, they hardly saw each other twice a year now.

It was agreed between them that Tarika would go back home that day, to fetch clothes and stuff, and then would come back the next day as a perfectly genuine guest. After discussing with Ananya, Tarika flew back to Mumbai the same day, she packed her stuffs also informed her secretary about her schedule and asked her to postponed all her meetings and court sessions to another week due to this upcoming job. After finalizing and taking care of her this business, Tarika decided to leave the next day once again to shimla.

...

However, After she reached the villa, she was informed by the butler from yesterday, that Ananya had been taken away on an urgent job and would be back by evening.

He had seized her luggage and was preparing to show her to her room, when a white-dressed figure with a spot of white hair and a smiling composure called out in a familiar voice, "Tarika..I didn't knew you were supposed to be here, or do you intend to solve our local mystery?"

...

AN

So how was it? Liked it r hated it? Mention it in the review section.

Thank You!

..

P.S: About the other updates, I'm working on it, I would post them tomorrow :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note: Thank you for the reviews :D**

**AN: You have being warned!**

**...**

**Characters**

***Tarika:** Age : 32 : Started her career as Forensic expert's assistant but soon she realized that it's not her thing so switched back to the law field, did her best in it, raised to fame as prosecution lawyer. She is quite determined, intelligent and calm in demeanor in her professional life.

***Abhijeet:** Age:33 : Ex- CID Officer. He retired at the age of 30 due to a massive accident while apprehending the culprit, it resulted that his right leg got severed injured which cost him to limp while walking due to which he has to quit his job due to proven medically unfit, he is now retired and kind off work as trainer for the new officers. Short-tempered and Angry man but at the same time a very efficient officer.

***Ananya:** Tarika's Childhood friend who is fashion designer, got married to a quiet rich business tycoon and Now is a joint partner in their chain of companies.

***Mayank:** Ananya's husband, a business tycoon.

**New Entrants in this chapter**

**Mr Ferguson : (65)Main servant **of sahani's family. He has the highest authority in the servants and keep and eye on everyone's activity. He has been working for Sahani's for the last 30 years.

***Vaibhav (32) Forensic Expert: **He is simple and helpful in nature, often helps people in need without expecting any much from them.

***Divyana: (32) Ex- CID Officer: **After her fear for blood got worse, she took an early retirement from CID and joined a local NGO, who works for the education of poor kids.

*** Marucs Smith (24) : **Son of a small scale industrialist Mr Smith Dsouza , who was murdered in his house and the son was arrested as the prime suspect in murdering his father, she remembered defending the case in court a two years back . The son was a crooked swindler who had got involved in all sorts of fishy business ever since he was fifteen, but in that case he was innocent. He is an idle person who lives on the money left by his father. He works as a side kick for Vikram.

*** Vikram Rajadhyaksh (35): **Son of a politician. A money greedy person,and quite immoral in values. He works as a finances and funds for various researches and study.

*** Rajat Kumar (34) well-known lawyer : **A well-known Prosecution/ defense lawyer. Has earned reputation and fame after he defeated many of the Top notch businessman and poisonous pharmaceutical companies due to their illegal activities.

*** Arundhati Iyer (46) Journalist : **She has received many awards after she brought the issue of child-trafficking cases

*** Sukriti Roy (55) Forensic Practitioner **: An expert and the head of Delhi Forensic Departments.

**...**

**Unveiled Murderer**

**Part II**

"Tarika..I didn't know you were supposed to be here, or do you intend to solve our local mystery?" a familiar voice cried out. Tarika turned in that voice direction and noticed her former partner, Forensic assistant smiling brilliantly back.

"Vaibhav! I didn't know you were there, as well…"

"I have come few days back," was his mere response. He hadn't changed much in the five years they had not met, his features had sharpened and there were small crow's-foot wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, making him look just older and more experienced. "I trust you remember my wife"

Now Tarika was on for a surprise. She remembered Vaibhav mentioning about he seeing Divyana who was also former CID Officer but she didn't knew that they got married, so she was quite surprised at the latest information supplied. Divyana who was also former CID Officer, took an early retirement after her fear of blood got worse after every case. After retiring with CID, she started working with an NGO who were working for education of street kids. As Tarika glanced at her she noticed that she had grown into a young mother of thirty-two, beautiful in her sort of way, with a sweet smile, a swollen belly, and in her attitude remnants of her previous diffidence.

The following minutes were pleasant enough. They recalled their former meetings, and though Vaibhav's presence could not help but remind her of certain senior officer but quickly brushing her thoughts aside she began inquiring about the routine stuffs like how her work with NGO was going, when the baby should be born, something about her life, so many questions and enquiries she was glad to make or answer to.

Two people passed them as they talked, deep in conversation (one of those she recognized was well-known lawyer ) before they were interrupted by the man-servant, who, informed them that he had carried Tarika's luggage into her room, and suggested that they should depart into a nearby sitting-room, where he should then be able to bring them refreshments.

After getting seated in the drawing rooms and while occasionally taking sip from their tea-cups, Tarika spoke,

"I came here once when I was younger, but the buildings have greatly changed. I did not know the manservant who welcomed me. Such a grand mansion must require a huge lot of attendance. I wonder how many people must be needed for its maintenance"

Only eight servants' over-all. " Vaibhav answered thoughtfully. "There's Mr Ferguson of course – that's the man-servant whom you met yesterday and today – who knows everything and takes care of everything, he is kind off the main in charge then at the gate, two security, three cooks in the kitchen and two maids, I think."

"It's not two, there are four maids," Divyana corrected. "So that means over all ten servants

"ohh.." Vaibhav replied.

Tarika left them to it and relaxed in her seat, sipping carefully the remaining contents in the cup. While sipping the content, Tarika's mind was still occupied with the thoughts about the poison-pen. She was narrowing down the suspects for some reason she left Vaibhav and Divyana from her suspect's list, she refused to picture them as the insane writers of those anonymous letters.

She thought she could rule out the servants, as well – for the moment, at least. The letters showed a close knowledge of all the guests' reputations and works, and somehow she thought that maybe the servants wouldn't be informed about them but there would also be a possibility of one of the servants had got hired under some false name and pretended to be someone else. So Tarika made a mental note to ask Ananya about the past history of her servants and to check whether one or other servants had entered recently at their service.

Those were the first moves. After that she has to survey each and every of the person closely to see if anyone of them shows any weird actions, of course she has to do it very secretly and in alert manner after all Ananya didn't want any of this thing to leak out in media thus creating a scandal and soiling the reputation of her family.

Her mind strayed away for a few moments, and then came back to the point. The best thing to do, for the moment, was to shut up and listen. In this state of things the only thing they could do is wait, wait till the insane maniac acts on his next step.

...

The first evening Tarika spent at the mansion was nothing like she had imagined, and certainly nothing like she had thought should be the reunion of personalities gathered for a study. The atmosphere, if anything, was relaxed. The guests were divided into groups; those seemed to have formed under the necessities of discussions and not the pressure of rivalries. Only Divyana seemed to be a bit excluded from the lot, but that was only because the subjects of conversation were no objects of interest to her; accordingly, Tarika went and sat by her, and engaged conversation about the baby. She caught the glance of gratitude her companion's husband sent to her, then, as the questions and answers on both sides were slow-paced, she let her gaze wander through the room.

The rest of the guests were strewn around the room in groups of two or three; often, as perfect hosts, Ananya and Mayank went from one to the other, and got their lot of smiles. By the window stood two rather tall men, both dressed in dark business suits; one of them was a politician's son, **Vikram Rajadhyaksh** and the other a well-known lawyer. His name was **Rajat Kumar **and Tarika had always admired him and his work; it had been a shock to meet him there.

Another journalist, **Arundhati Iyer **was presently talking to Vaibhav, and he did not look like he was having the time of his life. She probably disagreed with his entire argument and was busy breaking it point by point. A second woman sat alone beside the library, reading, - she was a strict-looking a forensic practitioner, **Sukriti Roy, a** woman with thick-mounted glasses encircling her dark eyes and an enormous book in her hands; she had barely looked up from it when Tarika had been introduced. Sometimes, one out of the group of three people who were animatedly talking right beside her right elbow turned to ask her a question, and she answered briefly and clearly before she dived back into her reading.

At this point the conversation with Divyana accelerated, and Tarika got interested. Her concentration was such that she didn't hear anyone approaching until long legs stretched under her nose and a hand was extended in front of her face, together with a pair of light eyes and a cheeky, unfaltering grin.

"Tarika mam?" said the youth cheerfully. "I'm really happy to meet you here. Look, I'm frightfully sorry to burst in and all that, but I think I owe you a BIG thanks."

He looked anything but frightfully sorry, seated comfortably between her chair and Divyana's, the hand she had bewilderingly shaken now tapping a rapid, gleeful rhythm on the chair's armrest. She was fairly certain she had never seen him before. "What should you thank me for?" she asked.

"Oh, well – you saved me from the gallows two years ago, Remember, two years ago, The case, in which all the money would go down to my other brother because of that bloody will but since you challenged the will it, the money was divided into two equal proportions." The youth supplied the information, "I owe you a lot for your help, Mam.." he said.

After hearing the case she recognized him, Marcus D'souza , he was the other son of a small scale industrialist Mr Smith Dsouza , who was murdered in his house and the other son was arrested as the prime suspect in murdering his father, she remembered defending the case in court a two years back . The son was a crooked swindler who had got involved in all sorts of fishy business ever since he was fifteen, but in that case, he had been innocent – though she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd done it. What his son was doing here right now, though, she had no idea.

"Yes, of course – now I recognize you. And what are you doing down here, Marcus?"

"Just enjoying the climate." He punctuated this with a dazzling smile that probably sent many girls weak at the knees; it would not do for her, though. For one thing, she was several years older than him. For another, he could very well be the author of those letters.

"Very well – and what are you doing here, in this mansion at this time of the year, Marcus?" she repeated, mid-mocking, mid-severe.

"Damned if I know." He shook his head sadly. "The old bird sent me, but the reason – there! Is quite confidential, can't speak about it." he said while sealing his lips.

Though unable to determine whether he was very clever or very stupid, Tarika watched with amusement as he cocked his head to the side and called out to one of the two men who'd been talking by the hearth, "Hey, Vikram! Would you mind coming over for a minute?"

The said guy excused himself and approached them. He was a well-preserved man of thirty-five or so, with a smiling composure and smart readiness of attitude; he seated himself among them, helped himself to a slice of cake, and looked fit to answering questions.

"That lady here," Marcus said with a pointed look at Tarika, "demands to know what exactly we are here for. Do you have an idea, by any chance?"

"Not in the least," Vikram answered. "Nothing much. Just touring the area."

""That's what I said," triumphed Marcus with a gratified voice, and having thus proved his intellectual superiority over common mortals, extended his long legs further afield, got out a cigarette, and proceeded to feel his pockets for something to light it with.

"I've got matches," Marcus answered. He fished in his pocket, produced the box, and tossed it over to him. As he lit the smoke and took a big puff, Tarika could see Vikram's devilish grin through the light smoke.

At eleven, the party broke off without a hitch. Tarika exchanged a few words with Ananya, and was able to tell her that nothing suspicious had arisen from her conversation with the guests. She also asked the reason for the presence of the politician's son, Vikram Rajadhyaksh and Marcus D'souza, Ananya told her that, Vikram's dad are sponsoring some funds for the study, so as a supervisor whether the funds have been used for proper purpose or not, he is been sent by his dad here and as far as Marcus was concerned he is just free-loader, he was friends with Vikram so decided to join him on this excursion. After clearing her doubts, Tarika proceeded to walk up to her room when she was stopped in mid-staircase by Rajat's voice calling behind her, "I would like to have a word with you, Miss Tarika, if you can spare me a few minutes then."

"Sure.." Tarika nodded.

Tarika came down again and followed the lawyer to his rooms, which were large and well furnished, and whose window curtains their owner impatiently drew on the night outside.

"Do sit down," he said, remarking that Tarika had remained on the doorstep, hesitating. "Can I offer you anything? Tea or coffee?"

Tarika accepted coffee, feeling with some reason that caffeine, at this time of the night, would help her staying awake, and sat in silence while her host stirred up the cup of coffee, which was already kept prepared in the room and seated opposite her chair. He was a very handsome man with dark toned skin his hair were precisely cut and cleanly shaved. He was surely a brilliant person having depth knowledge of his subject and was dedicated to his work. He was calm in his demeanor and had a great level of patience, he had a severe look – the kind of person who can get more from you in ten words than you get from him in a thousand. And that's why Tarika used to admire him as a person.

"Tarika, I do not think myself mistaken when supposing your coming to visit Mrs Ananya at this precise moment is no coincidence," he got to the point immediately, his voice serious and grave. Behind those glasses, which hid the shade of his eyes, a razor-sharp mind must be at work. "I should not be surprised at all if she had called you for the matter of those anonymous letters."

Tarika might have fidgeted. Thirty-two or no, she felt like a disobedient child faced with a particularly strict teacher.

"Actually, she did," Tarika admitted. "And I should tell you that you are suspected of writing them, as well as everybody else." Tarika replied determinedly.

This, unexpectedly, brought a first, small smile on his face. "I should think very ill of you if you didn't suspect me," the lawyer said. He stood up to fill his empty cup, he also proposed some more to Tarika, who declined, and sat back down. "I have heard much about you, Tarika. I even went to one of our audiences once to see you in court. You are a very talented lawyer." He paused, for the necessary protestations to fill in, and continued, "I do not, however, think you are the fittest person for this particular matter, yet I will do everything in my power to help you."

Tarika muttered a thanks and watched him pulling out a diary from the nearest bookcase and open it. "If, therefore, you cannot tell me anything of your personal deductions, I can tell you of mine, and provide you with intelligence others have no access to."

He displayed before Tarika's eyes a whole stack of letters, fifteen or twenty maybe, all of them identical in paper, size and printing to the anonymous letters Ananya had shown her. The messages they contained, however, differed: they were grimmer, nastier, and turned to downright obscenity towards the last two or three.

Tarika studied them closely, attentive to any distinctive detail, however small and insignificant, that might differ them from the letters Ananya had entrusted her with, but as far as she could see they were similar in every way. Size of the card, size and ink of the letters, grain of the paper – she could discern no difference.

"Do any other guests have received more letters they have not shown Ananya?" Tarika inquired.

"Not that I know of. But of course, I haven't told them about those, so they have really no reason for telling me." A pause ensued, which he spent watching into the hearth, the silence merely broken by the crackling of the fire and a log occasionally falling down, whipping up a whirl of sparks. Tarika watched his serious profile and wondered what kind of thinking was forming itself behind the thick, light-reflecting glasses.

"Tarika, all I can tell you is this," her host finally said, without looking at her at first. "That I have no reason whatsoever for assaulting with pointless anonymous letters such a respectable family as the Sahani's, but that I have no reliable defense to offer against me having done it. I can, however, give you my personal deductions in regard to the matter – unless you should think I could try to influence or impress upon you."

"I'm open to suggestions," Tarika said, a little waveringly. She did not wish him to be the author of the letters; her immense respect towards him and faculty both to reason and to foresee would make him a remarkable opponent, and it was likely she should never pin him down to anything. "You are innocent until proven guilty, in any case."

Rajat wasted no time on explaining the deductions. "Very well. I think our man, I tend to think it is a man, for the style of the letters is more masculine than feminine, unless it is a remarkable imitation and done purposefully to confuse us about the gender of the culprit. But right now, I would move forward with the culprit being man theory. (he took a pause and then once again continued with his observations)I think our man is a very clever person. His mind must have a capacity to reason and foresee," echoing without knowing it Tarika's own thoughts about the culprit a moment ago, "and a peculiarly developed insight ,too much, maybe, for him not to balance constantly on the thin edge between genius and mental decay."

Rajat picked his cup of coffee as he sipped its contents while Tarika's mind continued registering the details provided by him. While observing Tarika's face, Rajat spoke

"I think you ought to be very careful, Tarika."

…

After discussing with Rajat , Tarika returned to her room. As the night passed, she lay sleepless in her bed and considered thoughtfully the different conversations that had followed one another at day; it occurred to her that she should perhaps keep track of the dates and incidents, in case the matter was to be handed later on to the police or to an Ex- CID Officer. She got up and decided to pen down the details in a file, while sitting at the desk facing her bed; she took up Ananya's envelope containing the letters.

For a few moments, she considered them in silence; in the darkness only partly broken by the glow of her desk lamp, with the gloomy nightly noises and atmosphere surrounding her bedroom like a long curtain, the neat words stood out against their white background with nasty accuracy. It was no longer difficult to imagine the ghostly figure tiptoeing down the corridors as though draped in shadows, the lunatic mind at work, writing out grim messages and threat-like notes, slid under people's doors—

She started, her heart suddenly thumping hard against her ribs: a small white rectangle of paper lay on the parquet, just a few inches from the threshold.

After the first initial shock, and once the frantic in her chest had eased down, she found it was not so much of a surprise after all. In fact, she had been a fool not to expect it. Her assumed ignorance of the whole study-and-letters matter was easily see-through…

She picked up the card and read it carefully. "I'll keep that in mind," she murmured, as though her voice was by some miracle able to reach the author of the words.

On the white paper, black letters wrote out, disagreeably, "

**DON'T COME CRYING AFTERWARDS AND SAY YOU WEREN'T WARNED."**

...

AN

So how was it? Liked it r hated it? Mention it in the review section.

Also, Vaibhav, Divyana and Rajat are the same officers from CID :)

Thank You!

..


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note: Thank you for the reviews :D**

**AN: You have being warned!**

**...**

**Characters**

***Tarika:** Age : 32 : Started her career as Forensic expert's assistant but soon she realized that it's not her thing so switched back to the law field, did her best in it, raised to fame as prosecution lawyer. She is quite determined, intelligent and calm in demeanor in her professional life.

***Abhijeet:** Age:33 : Ex- CID Officer. He retired at the age of 30 due to a massive accident while apprehending the culprit, it resulted that his right leg got severed injured which cost him to limp while walking due to which he has to quit his job due to proven medically unfit, he is now retired and kind off work as trainer for the new officers. Short-tempered and Angry man but at the same time a very efficient officer.

***Ananya:** Tarika's Childhood friend who is fashion designer, got married to a quiet rich business tycoon and Now is a joint partner in their chain of companies.

***Mayank:** Ananya's husband, a business tycoon.

***Mr Ferguson : (65)Main servant **of sahani's family. He has the highest authority in the servants and keep and eye on everyone's activity. He has been working for Sahani's for the last 30 years.

***Vaibhav (32) Forensic Expert: **He is simple and helpful in nature, often helps people in need without expecting any much from them.

***Divyana: (32) Ex- CID Officer: **After her fear for blood got worse, she took an early retirement from CID and joined a local NGO, who works for the education of poor kids.

*** Marucs Smith (24) : **Son of a small scale industrialist Mr Smith Dsouza , who was murdered in his house and the son was arrested as the prime suspect in murdering his father, she remembered defending the case in court a two years back . The son was a crooked swindler who had got involved in all sorts of fishy business ever since he was fifteen, but in that case he was innocent. He is an idle person who lives on the money left by his father. He works as a side kick for Vikram.

*** Vikram Rajadhyaksh (35): **Son of a politician. A money greedy person,and quite immoral in values. He works as a finances and funds for various researches and study.

*** Rajat Kumar (34) well-known lawyer : **A well-known Prosecution/ defense lawyer. Has earned reputation and fame after he defeated many of the Top notch businessman and poisonous pharmaceutical companies due to their illegal activities.

*** Arundhati Iyer (46) Journalist : **She has received many awards after she brought the issue of child-trafficking cases

*** Sukriti Roy (55) Forensic Practitioner **: An expert and the head of Delhi Forensic Departments.

**...**

**Unveiled Murderer**

**Part III**

As it had been planned, Ananya and Mayank departed on the following Sunday. A business deal which her friend's husband necessarily had to crack which prevented them from staying any longer with the guests. A reunion was held the evening before in the main hall along with Tarika and the rest of the guests.

Nothing worth notice had happened during her half-week stay at the mansion but the irregular showing up of more letters, whose rhythm of appearance was now increasing every day. Eventually, though, it would have to burst on something of larger importance; trying to prevent it would be like trying to keep the tide down or the wind from blowing: in the end it would break onto a lightning storm or a tsunami.

Tarika's best advice was to remove the guests from the villa and interrupt their gathering, but since Mayank had opposed himself to stopping the study, and when asked, couldn't give any explanation about the study itself, she had resolved to stay and keep watch. The two letters she had received, the second pretty much similar to the first, in more insulting, had not scared her off but compelled her to stay.

It was therefore decided that the house's fate should be left within Tarika's hands. Mayank and Ananya would be returning in about a month; until then, the servants would follow Tarika's orders like they would have followed 'Ananya's . In what concerned the letters and their author, she could not do much. Keep watching, for one thing, and then, along with Vaibhav , Divyana's state of pregnancy preventing her from helping them. She would be able to patrol at least some of the corridors at night, in the hope to come across anything suspicious. It was probably a lost cause from the start, but other than that they could do nothing but wait.

Ananya and Mayank left at 10 am on Sunday morning. Tarika accompanied them to the airport, because at the back of mind she had some questions for Ananya and the answers to them were must.

One of the questions which were troubling her was why a journalist was included in the guest list. Even though Ananya insisted on the fact that she don't want any of the things to be published in media then what was the reason for including a journalist. To which Ananya replied that, Mayank insisted the presence of her, Also it was a deal between Mayank and the journalist, Arundati. The deal was Arundati would solely get the entire coverage of the study in exchange of that she has to turn deaf ears to the poison letters.

After getting her one answer, when Tarika asked her about what was the whole study about and why so many professionals were involved in it, Ananya remained silent. She told her that she can't divulge any details now, since the study is still in preliminary step, once things get fast paced, she would happily provide with all the details but till then she requested Tarika to avoid asking any questions related to it to any professionals involving it.

Though Tarika was not convinced with the whole talk but decided to wait for the time being, right now her main concerned was not study but the poison author, who was getting bolder by every passing day. After bidding goodbye to them, Tarika returned to the village , through the mountains, the mansion appeared to her at the junction of two wooded valleys, at the far end of the long and winding road she was on. It grew bigger and more impressive as the distance reduced, and it suddenly swooped down on her how important and of what magnitude would be her task there.

There were no or almost no signs of human civilisation surrounding it: the stone bridge, and the other villa not far-off, which ten year's abandon and nature had led to an advanced state of decay. This was the only road, and if there ever was a rock fall down this slope then they would be utterly cut from the rest of the world. Actually there were already cut from the rest of the world, due to the villa being in such mountainous areas, there were no network available, no mails, no calls nothing. The only one way of communicating the people outside the village was the antique landline phone , which used to work only in summers since in rainy season the lines used to get cut due to lighting disturbance .

Tarika really wanted to end this case as fast as she could and return back to Mumbai. When she arrived, one of the servants, female this time, opened the door. Without looking much around, Tarika headed straight towards her room to take rest as she didn't received any good sleep due to the anonymous letter which got delivered to her in the middle of night.

…

Curiously enough, Ananya and Mayank's departure changed the atmosphere of cordiality and carelessness that had ruled everybody's relationship with everybody until now. In the large drawing-room that gathered them after dinner, the groups they separated into were less mobile and less comfortable with themselves; they spoke more carefully and in lower voices.

In regard to Tarika herself, they treated her with the same kind of defiance and forced affability which suspects of a crime use with the detective charged to discover the culprit among them. Of course her purpose in being there – though it had never been explicitly explained – was implicitly known and admitted by all: now that Ananya was gone, it was the only reason for her to stay. Apart from Vaibhav and Divyana, the only ones to be perfectly natural with her was Rajat because she already knew what he was about, and Marucs because he didn't seem to care a damn and was living in his own world.

Tarika was reading a book, at least it seemed to be but her mind was still scanning the people around her.

When she noticed Arundhati Iyer, the journalist, she was reading the newspaper. She was a strict woman, rather resembling Acp Pradyuman Sir – Assistant Commissioner of Police,Mumbai – in manner . Tarika had seen her many of the interviews and has been an avid follower to her column, as a journalist, she had a capacity of persuasion much superior. In a true poker-face fashion, she could take his adversary's argument, turn it inside out, and toss it back to him with such an impassive face, as though she'd done nothing extraordinary, that disconcerted her opponent and led him to make mistakes. Of course it was useless to question her about the what, where and how of the study.

So Tarika thought maybe she should ask Rajat about she knew that he would treat her question with the contempt it deserved, and would send her off on a totally other track while giving her the impression that she'd done it all by herself. So she also dropped that idea.

Later that evening, after the faithful servants had supplied her with a comfortable mug of coffee, she retreated to the window seat from whence she could supervise the whole room; and wondered which of the people gathered there (except Vaibhav and Divyana) hid the twisted mind that wrote such sordid notes. Though rather tense, none of them presented any lunatic aspect: they all mastered the art of draping themselves in their reputation and innocence.

Arundati look much too just and incorruptible to come up with such extremities, but then again so did Rajat, and both of them had more than enough brain to be able of it. Who else then? Marcus, who was acting like Romeo and living on the cloud nine or Vikram Rajadhyaksh, despite his beaming composure and readiness to make himself useful,? Or Sukriti Roy, who out of the lot was the one she, had never talked to, but for an occasional 'Good morning'? Who? Who was behind all this?

And then, of course, there was the matter of the domestics. She had asked Ananya before her friend had gone, and the answer had been, that all their menservants, cooks, maids, security etc., had been at their service for many years, without ever showing any loony tendencies; second, that the only person who was known to have the brains for such a thing was the irreproachable Mr Ferguson. But Ananya was quite sure that he wouldn't do such thing since he has been associated with the Sahani's for such a long period of time.

"Radha," she asked the maid who'd come to tell her the answer to a message she'd sent to the kitchen about tomorrow's lunch, "how long have you been at Ananya's service exactly?"

The young girl who was stooping by the hearth stopped piling up logs and stood up, rubbing her hands on her apron. She spoke pleasantly – it wasn't every day that she was asked after her life, and that young woman in her twenties, with the understanding smile and the beautiful, silky black hair, was already a favourite among the staff. "It will be six years in three weeks, miss. I was sixteen when I started working here."

"And do you like it here? Isn't there anything that repels you?"

"I like it very much, mam is a very kind of woman; everything is very easy and agreeable."

"Even the matter of anonymous letters showing up unexpectedly?" Tarika asked, and watched carefully for a reaction.

There wasn't much of it. Radha's face lit up at the sight of possible gossip, and she began to talk much faster. "Oh! That, miss? Of course we know all about it – it's us who finds them most of the time, you know, when we comes up to clean the bedrooms – it really is a serious business, isn't it? Who do you think writes those letters, miss?" She caught a deep breath.

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," said Tarika, who at the moment rather wanted to check the flow of words before Radha started up again. "You haven't happened to notice anything out of the extraordinary recently, have you?"

"No Mam..why?." Radha's tone clearly indicated that she wished she had. "Of course it's always different than usual when there are so many guests in the house and Mam and Sir gone away for a month, there's always more work to do in the bedrooms and then some of those ladies and gentlemen guests may have such curious requests, it's quite puzzling sometimes, —" Second pause for breath.

"What kind of requests?" Tarika asked, rapidly.

"Oh, well – things they want carried to their rooms at night, and phone calls they want through, —"

The lights went out.

Hardly a second of confusion had gone past, and an enormous crash and clatter of glass and wood exploded with a thundering noise in the depths of the building. Radha began to shriek – and everything was dark and hectic, sounds of running fast in the corridor, a cry of pain—

"Be quiet!" Tarika's voice shouted, and then as nothing changed, "I have a torch here."

The shrieking stopped. A second's wait and Tarika's face appeared in a ray of yellow light, pale and hollow within the surrounding darkness. She averted it from her eyes and directed it on the walls, Radha's tense figure, her hands twisting her apron, and finally the window, a rectangle of black. All the lights in the opposite wing had gone out as well.

"Oh, ! What was that?"

"I don't know. I'll go find out. You can stay here," she added, seeing that Radha looked terrified at the idea of wandering off in the corridors, but the maid firmly expressed her refusal at staying all alone in the dark, and together they got out of the bedroom and galloped down the passages towards the source of the noise. There were voices echoing through the panels and somebody running behind them as well; the ray from the torch swayed jerkily on the walls. Turn left, turn right, turn left and left again, and then the lights were switched back on, in a gradual succession all along the corridor, and they very nearly collided with a small gathering of people crammed together in front of a door.

Tarika broke off, breathless, and tossed the torch in Radha's hands. Behind them arrived other two maids and one of the cook demanding to know what the bloody hell was happening.

"We'd all like to know," said Rajat, from the doorstep. Tarika elbowed her way past Vikram and Marcus and joined others on the threshold of the open door.

This was Mayank's study room, a medium-sized room usually tidy and clean. Tonight, however, it was a battlefield.

Most of the furniture had been crashed down to the floor, so that there were wood splinters everywhere, and the numerous piles of folders and files and papers that used to stand on the desk had been shred to bits and lay scattered around. The curtains had been torn down. One of the windows was shattered to pieces of glass; a chair, which now stood triumphantly near it, had very likely been thrown against it and crushed it. To complete the sight, threats had been thrown on the walls, in red paint: the pot and brush had been put neatly down in the middle of the room in insolent mockery. It had run down at some places, and pools of red liquid shone dimly on the floor, like traces of just-shed blood.

Tarika took in all of this in one glance – there was probably more, less visible – and turned back to the assembled guests, all of them craning their heads to see inside and strangely dampened, almost ridiculous in their pyjamas and bedclothes. It was impossible to decide which of them looked more suspicious, less surprised maybe. She thought she'd take care of that later.

"Has anybody gone in?"

They all had, of course. They had wanted to check what was going on, before Mr Ferguson had arrived and made them stand back to prevent further damage. It was already done, though. Tarika entrusted them all to the Main servant's competent hands with the orders to take them all to one room and keep them there, then she closed the door behind her and began investigating.

It would be difficult not to step on anything: the floor was strewn with random items, sheets of paper, and pieces of glass and traces of paint. It was a morbid sight. She checked, out of nervousness . It would be useless looking for fingerprints on all this, of course – he or she would have worn gloves – but she nonetheless wrapped a tissue around her hand before she picked up anything.

The wreckage had been well done. All of this – the smashed furniture, the broken window, the torn curtains, the red-painted threats – it all combined to create a striking effect of confusion and general chaos. They couldn't have been painted in the dark, though – but the circuit breaker was situated in the corridor just outside the door, and the culprit had probably painted on the walls, then gone out and switched the current out, then gone back inside and thrown everything upside down by the light coming in through the windows, or, better, with the aid of a torch. Where was it, then? He, or she, had probably hid it somewhere…

She found it laying half under the carpet, its black surface void of any fingerprints. Nothing to be got in that direction. She could try and find who owned it; but then they would claim it had been stolen, and anyway she rather suspected it had been taken out of the house's stock at disposal downstairs. Thoughtful, she crossed the room carefully and opened the intact window, drawing the pane towards her: it looked directly into a small, grassy quad, flanked on all four sides by the buildings. Out of all the windows, only two were left; if she had memorized the house's plan well enough, the room just below the study room was occupied by Marcus while the room above was occupied by Sukriti.

She closed the window and crossed the room again, this time looking closely for anything out of the ordinary. Everything was out of the ordinary. Great. But even a small detail… the small detail that didn't fit…

She was hit full force by a wave of memories, sudden and unwanted, that roamed overwhelmingly in her mind before leaving as abruptly as it had come. She felt a fool all of a sudden, very still like she was in the middle of the room, kneeling and looking for clues like an amateur Sherlock Holmes. It was useless – there was nothing there that might be considered as a clue,that might lead her even to the beginning of a deduction.

Who was she trying to fool, anyway? She wasn't so much of a detective…

She locked the door carefully behind her and went off in search of the other guests, only to discover them in an adjacent room, where Mr Ferguson was supplying them with hot coffee. When Tarika came in they all looked up at her in expectation, hoping maybe that she had uncovered the culprit; she could not help thinking that they all relied on her now, considered her no longer as an infiltrated person but as one of them.

"You've seen the damage done to this room," she said, feeling somewhat ill-at-ease, after she'd grabbed some coffee for herself. "There isn't much of a doubt that it was committed by the same person who sent us all those anonymous letters." And she included herself in them, too, she realized then. "And I'm afraid there isn't much of a doubt that this person is among us right now."

Of course it wasn't a novelty, of course she was only putting words on what they'd known all along, but the change in the atmosphere was sensible. Tension was draping itself all around them like heavy velvet, and the first raindrops that began to drip softly on the windowpane did nothing to ease it off.

"The Poison Pen has wanted to show us what he – or she – was able of. I'm afraid if we do nothing something drastic may happen next time – if there is a next time. I should advocate calling for the police," Tarika went on mercilessly. "It would be the surest and safest way out of this"

A concert of protestations covered the end of her sentence. Calling for the police was out of the question, since Ananya has already warned her to not involve any of the police authorities. They could not allow that risk. What could the police do anyway?

"It's your decision," Tarika finally said to calm the growing tension, "if you had rather endanger your lives but not your study. What is it all about, anyway?"

If she had hoped to surprise them into answering, she was disappointed. There was no answer.

She finally sent them all back to their rooms, insisting upon their remaining there until morning; and before following her own advice she caught hold of Mr Ferguson and asked him to lock, not only the key, but also the dead-bolts of each and every doors and windows giving on. He assured her very professionally that he should this very night, and she was resuming her walk towards her room, when seized by an afterthought she ran back up to him and asked whether one or the whole bunch of his keys had not mysteriously vanished then appeared again sometime lately. The answer was, No, miss, it never had. Yes, he should know it immediately if it ever did: he always carried them himself, and locked them in the drawer of his bedside table at night. No, there wasn't any double of the key to Mayank's study room, except the one Mayank himself used, and he had taken it away with him.

Of course it didn't mean much, Tarika thought after she'd thanked him and walked away, any amateur burglar would know how to use pick-locks. But then again the lock on the door of Mayank's office had a peculiar shape, twisted and long, with sharp angles. She didn't think any common pick-locks could make the most of it. But if the culprit hadn't entered through the door, how had he gone in?

She went back to bed and slept.

The next morning brought new instalments. It had stopped raining sometime around dawn, and the sky was now a clear, pale blue accentuated by the cotton-like white clouds. The grass in the garden was still wet with shining pearls of dripping water, and the windowpanes on the upper floor reflected sunlight from one to the other.

Crouching by the flowerbeds below the broken window, Tarika inspected with some surprise the trampled-on plants and the beautiful set of footprints visible in the damp soil; above, traces of the same dark-brown mud that had attached to the shoes, then stuck to the white-painted wood. It looked very much like somebody had stood there then spanned over the window frame to get in. She had checked all the doors and windows that Mr Ferguson had duly closed and locked the night before, but of course they hadn't be so before the incident, she also asked the security if they had seen anyone running and escaping during the commotion but they said that since it was dark they can't be sure of it.

She turned back inside and directed her steps towards the library, with the vague idea in mind to put a call through to Mumbai to her secretary to check whether everything was alright. When she reached the wooden doors, one of them being slightly ajar, a hoarse voice wandered out of it through the slit, and the words struck her so forcibly she stopped cold, her hand frozen on the doorknob.

"I've done as you told me," the voice was saying, "but nothing came out. No, nothing… You mean to say ? … Oh, yes. Rather!"

Pause.

"No – no, I'll give the money – I will. If you could only tell me who – I did, and nothing happened!" Silence. "But – here, listen, and man – the business isn't what I was told. There's a 'tec among us now – a lawyer – Tarika—" The man swore loudly. "NO, I don't know anything about it! If I did I wouldn't tell her, would I? Look here, maybe we can work this out otherwise – wait—"

A third pause, longer then the two first, and hastily interrupted by a hearty, "Good Lord! No, don't! I'll do everything you want, but don't—" here the voice dropped to a whisper, and lowered gradually so much Tarika soon lost all track of it. Tarika tried opening the door but it was jammed, finally pushing it for few minutes she succeeded opening it, but there was no-one to be found,the library was deserted.

On the left wall stood an open door, through which the caller had visibly gone through. Tarika quickly ran towards the door and made her way through the corridor in hoping to find the caller, she turned around the junction and was about to move forward when she bumped to someone.

"are you okay, Miss Tarika?" the said person asked.

Tarika looked at him and found the lawyer staring at him in concerned manner.

"Yeah, I'm okay.." she replied.

"that's good.." He was about to move forward when Tarika called him out.

"Rajat, did you see anyone passing through the corridor?"

"I'm afraid not.." Rajat replied her while reading something from his book. "Why?" he asked her, while shifting his eyes from the book to the lady in front of him.

"Nothing.." Tarika replied and headed towards the other wing, in her mind she hated herself so much for such a narrow escape with the criminal but at the same time she found Rajat's answer unusually strange and suspicious. She was sure that the culprit escaped towards this direction and still Rajat noticed nothing," How was that even possible? Unless the culprit was Rajat himself!"

...

**AN**

** ** Darknite0403: **MaverickS26 : tanayayadav17 : Thankyou so much for the review :)**

**If there are mistakes, please make sure to point it out :D**

**Thank You !**


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note: Thank you for the reviews :D**

**AN: You have being warned!**

**...**

**Characters**

***Tarika:** Age : 32 : Started her career as Forensic expert's assistant but soon she realized that it's not her thing so switched back to the law field, did her best in it, raised to fame as prosecution lawyer. She is quite determined, intelligent and calm in demeanor in her professional life.

***Abhijeet:** Age:33 : Ex- CID Officer. He retired at the age of 30 due to a massive accident while apprehending the culprit, it resulted that his right leg got severed injured which cost him to limp while walking due to which he has to quit his job due to proven medically unfit, he is now retired and kind off work as trainer for the new officers. Short-tempered and Angry man but at the same time a very efficient officer.

***Ananya:** Tarika's Childhood friend who is fashion designer, got married to a quiet rich business tycoon and Now is a joint partner in their chain of companies.

***Mayank:** Ananya's husband, a business tycoon.

***Mr Ferguson : (65)Main servant **of sahani's family. He has the highest authority in the servants and keep and eye on everyone's activity. He has been working for Sahani's for the last 30 years.

***Vaibhav (32) Forensic Expert: **He is simple and helpful in nature, often helps people in need without expecting any much from them.

***Divyana: (32) Ex- CID Officer: **After her fear for blood got worse, she took an early retirement from CID and joined a local NGO, who works for the education of poor kids.

*** Marucs Smith (24) : **Son of a small scale industrialist Mr Smith Dsouza , who was murdered in his house and the son was arrested as the prime suspect in murdering his father, she remembered defending the case in court a two years back . The son was a crooked swindler who had got involved in all sorts of fishy business ever since he was fifteen, but in that case he was innocent. He is an idle person who lives on the money left by his father. He works as a side kick for Vikram.

*** Vikram Rajadhyaksh (35): **Son of a politician. A money greedy person,and quite immoral in values. He works as a finances and funds for various researches and study.

*** Rajat Kumar (34) well-known lawyer : **A well-known Prosecution/ defense lawyer. Has earned reputation and fame after he defeated many of the Top notch businessman and poisonous pharmaceutical companies due to their illegal activities.

*** Arundhati Iyer (46) Journalist : **She has received many awards after she brought the issue of child-trafficking cases

*** Sukriti Roy (55) Forensic Practitioner **: An expert and the head of Delhi Forensic Departments.

**...**

**Unveiled Murderer**

**Part IV**

After the incident in library, Tarika started to observe Rajat more closely but she didn't found anything suspicious about him, either he was way too clever to get caught or Tarika really made a mistake by thinking him as a culprit. After observing him for two days, Tarika dropped the idea of him being the culprit at least for the time being.

In this period, letters had flowed in, full of sadistic triumph, and warning them off the house for the last time before the curse befell upon them all. Unmoved, the guests and staff kept going with their daily occupations, and the various little white cards were gathered up by Tarika in her file. There was beginning to be pretty lot of them by now; they were kept in plastic sheets and labelled after the time and location of their discovery, Like _"Note found on Rajat's chair at 9 pm, October 11th," "Note found on Dr Sukrit's book at noon, October 12th."_

Amongst them, one of the letters was particularly addressed to Tarika. It was a picture Tarika, morphed on the picture of a naked woman threatened by a guillotine-like blade over her head. Tarika was so disgusted by it that she nearly burned it.

In the daytime, she looked out for further intelligence about the letters or the study, but on the first matter everyone was inscrutable and in the second there was NOTHING. There were no gatherings, no visits in the library, and no mysterious disappearances for a few hours: they all acted exactly as though they were on vacation. Yet when she asked Vaibhav about it, he smiled pleasantly and said everything was going on charmingly – after that she gave up understanding.

The days wore on. A queer-looking routine settled in, rather similar to the one that must lead the inhabitants of a besieged town. Not a word, or very little else, was said either about the letters or the wreckage of Mayank's office; not a question was asked to Tarika about the results of her investigations. Somehow, all of this was beginning to feel rather surreal. The guests passed in and out of the mansion like ghosts on a stage, the servants fulfilled their task in ethereal silence, and in the midst of all this Tarika sat by her fire, read detective novels, completed her files etc..

Something was bound to happen, though, she could strongly sense it. The letters showed it in all their triumph: the wreckage of Mayank's office had encouraged the culprit, and the failure of Tarika's investigations had thrilled him – or her.

"He or she will strike again," she said to Rajat, with whom such conversations weren't unusual; the older lawyer was the only of the guests who could speak of the matter freely and somehow Tarika felt absolute comfortable talking with him. Somehow the thought of culprit being Rajat completely vanished from her mind and she was cent per cent sure about him being innocent, the way she felt about divaana and Vaibhav.

"And bigger, this time. I'm afraid my presence has had the opposite effect than it was meant to." Tarika replied while staring at the blank space.

"What make you think so?" Rajat asked severely, with the air of someone who knows perfectly the answer but wants her to say it all by herself. They were sitting together in the library at the end of the afternoon, where they'd been abandoned earlier by Marcus and Arundhati.

"Well – I was supposed to frighten him off, but somehow he doesn't seem very affected. On the contrary. It looks like he wants to show everyone what an amateur I am and how helpless when faced with him.

"I told you I didn't think you weren't the fittest person for this case, you know." Rajat tapped the pen on the desk in front of him.

"I know," Tarika said, and looked away.

**…**

The second incident occurred the very evening – only it was much bigger than anything the first had been like. Tarika had been sitting up at her desk, employed in categorizing today's letters, labelling them, and taking down in a notebook what small events had taken place since the previous entry.

'Nothing much. A slight argument between Arundhati and Vikram, about something Sukrit Mam had said. These two dislike each other very much. I was abou—"

She had hardly affixed those words on the page that a crashing noise, alike in sound and in volume to a crack of thunder or the sudden roar of a motorbike, exploded somewhere in the depths of the building. It came out terrifyingly clear, and it died out just as suddenly. Tarika's armchair was flung back in haste as she grabbed instinctively for the torch she left on her desk handy for all emergency, and she dashed out of the room without a second thought for the consequences of leaving her door wide open; the only thing she dared think about was that somebody had been shot.

Running and shouts. This always had to happen at night – she cursed mentally, and accelerated. Somewhere in the midst of all that confusion, a small, logical part of her mind remarked that if she even ran into somebody who went opposite, that person was all the more likely to be the Culprit– but no form, ghostly or visible, did cross her path. There were far too many corridors in this house…

She arrived second best on the spot. Mr Ferguson had got there first, and he had had time enough to kneel by Rajat's shaking body and sustain him up. Panicking, Tarika dropped herself by their side, but the lawyer was breathing regularly, fully conscious, only his shoulder wounded. The bullet had dug deep in the flesh and it bled heavily.

"What's happened?" shouted Vaibhav from behind her; realizing Rajat's state, he pushed Tarika aside and took her place. Tarika got to her feet, and was left to answering the frantic questions of more guests arriving. They ceased coming after one or two more minutes. Both Vikram and Marcus were missing.

Tarika thought she'd better handle that in the morning instead of going off in search for them; it didn't seem likely that the culprit, if it wasn't one of them, should attack either that night. More things, on location, caught her eye anyway: the crackled mirror on the wall in front of her, partly shattered at the bottom; the golden bullet she picked up from the carpet; the small revolver she found lying at the corner. Once more, it would probably be useless looking for fingerprints on the grip and trigger, but she wrapped it in a handkerchief anyway.

"How is he?" she asked, returning towards the gathered guests with her findings burrowed deep in her pocket.

"He'll be fine, I think," Vaibhav said, inspecting the wound with the aid of one silent Forensic Doctor, Sukriti.

"We'll rinse this and bandage it, and then after giving him some painkillers it would be alright. Mr Ferguson, please bring some water and disinfectant, please. And large bands of gaze."

"Of course, sir."

After Mr Fergusn left , Vaibhav asked everyone to clear the room and head towards their respective rooms, when Tarika was about to head towards her room she noticed something else.

She stood, motionless, in front of the crackled mirror; a glassy, ill-reflecting spider web interweaved its threads from the middle of the surface all over it to the edges. To mark it that way, the person who had fired must have been standing directly in front of it – and the bullet had hit the mirror and shot right back.

**...**

When she got back to her room later into the night, she noticed her file was mysteriously gone away from her desk. Cursing, she switched savagely the lights off and got into bed. It was not after an hour of tossing and turning and fancying she saw ghostly figures hovering in the corners that she eventually sank into a restless sleep – and dreamt of argument and not so sweet memory she had with the senior inspector around six to seven years before.

**...**

The file reappeared again in the morning, just as mysteriously as it had vanished the night before. When she opened her bedroom door, feeling refreshed and her ideas clearer, she found the folder standing neatly against the wall outside, its contents untouched in insolent mockery. Between two pages had been slid a card with the words, in red ink, running along the lines of,

**"So much work for so little results—"**

Rather out of helpless revenge than of professional acuteness, she took it back inside, labelled the note carefully, secured it safely in a plastic sheet, and locked the whole in a drawer.

She caught hold of Mr Ferguson in the hall and asked him after it. The servants' face mustered as much surprise as it could in all its impassibility and said,

"I am perplex, mam. I have brought your breakfast at seven' clock this morning, but since you was asleep I took it back and I am positive that no such thing as a folder was laying there. I would have let you know, mam. But perhaps Radha, who came to clean this floor around seven-thirty, can enlighten you on the matter."

Radha, once summoned, was indeed able to narrow the spectre of the possibilities. She had through that corridor that morning, cleaning and, yes, she had seen that file standing against the wall. That would be around seven –thirty or around that time. But she daren't touch it, because she feared it might be booby-trapped or something and she didn't want to get shot like it happened to Rajat the night before.

"By the way,the letters," Tarika interrupted. "Has any of the other servants – or the cooks – received some, do you know?"

"If any of us had, you would already know about it, mam," Mr Ferguson said, a little stiff .Tarika thanked them both and, after a moment's thought, went straight into the library. She sat there in her favourite armchair, stared outside the window at the trees and the morning fog.

She brooded on for long minutes. There weren't so many alternatives now; the situation had reached a crisis. Besides, it was all out of her hands. They couldn't allow anything like yesterday to happen again – next time, it might be fatal to the victim. She wasn't altogether certain the first attempt had meant to be so, but – Anyway, the exterior world could no longer remain out of this.

Not for the first time, but with a greater sense of alarm, she realized how acutely the case in hand had reached a critical and dangerous point, how absurd and hazardous was their gathering, how stupid the simple fact that they should remain there, in this grand, unreachable house, at the mercy of any passing lunatic. She shouldn't have accepted to come into the matter at all; it had done more bad than good.

"Sukriti Mam," she called out to the practitioner as she passed the library's doors, "do you happen to know whether Rajat is feeling any better, this morning? Will he be able to leave her room?"

The elder woman stopped dead in her tracks and glared at her with such intensity Tarika might have just insulted her. "Yes, he will," she said stiffly, almost grudgingly. "He has been very properly shot. There won't be any after-effects."

"There won't? That's great. In that case, would you mind telling him and any guests you happen to come across on your way that I should like to see them all in the—" she hesitated. Not here; this library was a place for peace and silence, not for many people talking loud together and arguing. "—in the sitting-room in the left wing, first floor."

"Certainly," was the short, severe, almost rude answer?

"Thank you, Mam. I'll see you there in fifteen minutes." Sukriti walked briskly away, and Ran remained where she was. After some minutes she also asked Mr Ferguson what she had just asked the practitioner. If all the guests were assembled in the good room in due time, it was certainly thanks to him.

Rajat appeared supported on one side by Vaibhav, on the other by Marcus, and was seated in the deeper and most comfortable armchair. He appeared to be very feeble, but his sharp black eyes met Tarika's with unmoveable determination.

Discussion would be hard, Tarika thought.

Rajat begun telling about what exactly took place the night before,

"It was around half-past ten the evening before, he had been sitting by the chimney, reading, when a small card had been slid under his door and heavy, rapid footsteps could be heard running down the passage. He'd gone after him, of course, not forgetting to take his torch with him, but the man was as elusive as the shadows themselves – in fact, he always seemed to tear past a corner the very moment he reached the corridor he'd just left, so that the light ray never showed anything more than the rapid swirl of a sleeve or a disappearing leg.

"Are you quite certain it was a man you saw?" Marcus asked in a plaintive voice – almost anxiously, Tarika thought.

"I'm positive. The footsteps were too harsh and heavy to be a woman's." Rajat replied.

"unless she was wearing very strong shoes, which wouldn't have been all the most practical for running," Arundahti said, considering. All fell into a contemplative silence, out of which Arundhati eventually had to urge Rajat, by prompting him to continue.

"Yes – sorry. I don't know exactly how long this running lasted – it felt like centuries, but it can't have been more than two, maybe three minutes. We kept on the second floor all along. I think we passed your room once, Mr Vikram."

"You did," he said. "I heard you."

"Yes. Well, after some time that man suddenly rounded back on me, or took another passage, or waited at a corner, for I collided with him then. My torch dropped and I think broke. That's when he shot me – only he shot the mirror. He must have seen my reflection and fired, thinking it was me… the bullet made a rebound and hit my shoulder instead. I think I shouted – and he heard voices and got frightened, and fled."

Tarika scanned the faces so did Rajat hoping to get some involuntary reaction of – something, indignation or leer maybe, but they were all a set of polite, attentive blanks.

"Something puzzles me, though," Rajat was adding as an afterthought of his sensible mind. "I'm almost certain I heard his revolver fall down on the floor, it made a metallic sound. But if none of you found it," looking round, "I suppose he must have recovered it when he rushed back in with everybody else."

"As a matter of fact, he didn't," Tarika said, making all of them start. She fished the pistol out of her pocket and laid it neatly on the table, where it stayed for a second in the utmost silence. Then—

"That's mine," Rajat said.

Sensation. Tarika glances rapidly at him then back at the revolver.

"Are you quite certain ?"

"It is, anyhow, similar to mine in every point." he picked it up, careful to touch only the handkerchief, and turned the cylinder open. "Five bullets – and there were six in mine. One shot fired." he clicked it shut. "I keep my gun ready for all emergencies in the top drawer of my desk – I saw it there only yesterday morning. That will have to be checked, of course."

Mr ferguson was dispatched in verification and Rajat handed the gun back to Tarika. "You'll want to keep it, I suppose."

Tarika wrapped the tissue more tightly around the revolver, pocketed it, and waited for the noise to settle down. They were all talking together, rapidly, confusedly; like some kindergarten kids, she thought. They all knew what was coming – they all knew what she was going to say. Arundhati stood abruptly and walked over to the window, where she stood with her hands a crossed her chest. Vikram lit a cigarette with nervous, irritated gestures. Marcus laughed sheepishly. It seemed that the room was but one, immense held-back breath.

"Of course, you understand this cannot go on after such an accident," Tarika said, each word from her building up a tension that weighted heavier and heavier on everyone's shoulders. Silence fell when she had finished, it was sharp and cold. People stared at their feet, or stared resolutely into complete emptiness.

"We cannot allow any similar event to occur again," Tarika went on mercilessly. "I'm sorry – I cannot do anything more for you. It's all out of my hands – we have to call for the police."

Mr Ferguson was helpful enough to come in then and say that the top drawer of Rajat's desk was void of any revolver.

"In all, the culprit took Rajat sir's revolver to shoot him." Eyes glared at him, but Mr Ferguson, master of deadpan, stood his ground impassively.

"Thank you, Mr Ferguson," said Tarika. "So you see, what the situation is like. Our man, or woman, is ready to rob and murder to reach his or her objective – whatever it is. We can't permit that risk, I'm sure you understand that."

"We can't really interrupt the study—" Vikram began.

"The police here is out of the question," Arundhati said gravely.

"Do you have any other alternative to offer?" Tarika said with irritation. "Do any of you happen to have a brilliant idea to stop the massacre? Would the culprit – who is, I remind you, among us right now – kindly unmask himself?"

"Maybe the police itself – the official police isn't necessary. Constables here will never do. But someone like an ex-officer or retired officer – paid to be silent, paid not to make any trouble – would be more to the point. It would not only prevent scandal, but the man would also be able to investigate more quietly, with perhaps better results."

Tarika's heart skipped a beat. She had seen this coming all along – she had braced herself against it, but when she had recovered her hold upon her senses. Agreements or protests filled the air, fused with the quickness of flashlights, as all the guests immediately grasped the buoy that had been thrown among them. Somebody capable, somebody who knew what he was about, but somebody who excels in his investigation, truly a brilliant officer.

Tarika closed her eyes.

And then Vaibhav proposed, in his low, grave, serious voice of Doom, "I know someone who can help us with this, I suggest we call for **Senior Inspector Abhijeet,** retired officer of CID."

...

**AN**

** Thankyou so much for the review :)**

**If there are mistakes, please make sure to point it out :D**

**Thank You !**


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note: Thank you for the reviews :D**

**AN: You have being warned!**

**...**

**Characters**

***Tarika:** Age : 32 : Started her career as Forensic expert's assistant but soon she realized that it's not her thing so switched back to the law field, did her best in it, raised to fame as prosecution lawyer. She is quite determined, intelligent and calm in demeanor in her professional life.

***Abhijeet:** Age:33 : Ex- CID Officer. He retired at the age of 30 due to a massive accident while apprehending the culprit, it resulted that his right leg got severed injured which cost him to limp while walking due to which he has to quit his job due to proven medically unfit, he is now retired and kind off work as trainer for the new officers. Short-tempered and Angry man but at the same time a very efficient officer.

***Ananya:** Tarika's Childhood friend who is fashion designer, got married to a quiet rich business tycoon and Now is a joint partner in their chain of companies.

***Mayank:** Ananya's husband, a business tycoon.

***Mr Ferguson : (65)Main servant **of sahani's family. He has the highest authority in the servants and keep and eye on everyone's activity. He has been working for Sahani's for the last 30 years.

***Vaibhav (32) Forensic Expert: **He is simple and helpful in nature, often helps people in need without expecting any much from them.

***Divyana: (32) Ex- CID Officer: **After her fear for blood got worse, she took an early retirement from CID and joined a local NGO, who works for the education of poor kids.

*** Marucs Smith (24) : **Son of a small scale industrialist Mr Smith Dsouza , who was murdered in his house and the son was arrested as the prime suspect in murdering his father, she remembered defending the case in court a two years back . The son was a crooked swindler who had got involved in all sorts of fishy business ever since he was fifteen, but in that case he was innocent. He is an idle person who lives on the money left by his father. He works as a side kick for Vikram.

*** Vikram Rajadhyaksh (35): **Son of a politician. A money greedy person,and quite immoral in values. He works as a finances and funds for various researches and study.

*** Rajat Kumar (34) well-known lawyer : **A well-known Prosecution/ defense lawyer. Has earned reputation and fame after he defeated many of the Top notch businessman and poisonous pharmaceutical companies due to their illegal activities.

*** Arundhati Iyer (46) Journalist : **She has received many awards after she brought the issue of child-trafficking cases

*** Sukriti Roy (55) Forensic Practitioner **: An expert and the head of Delhi Forensic Departments.

**...**

**Unveiled Murderer**

**Part V**

_The sunbeams were dancing lightly on the tiles of the deserted forensic lab, golden flickers swiftly swaying, gliding, and disappearing on the smooth, shiny surface._

_She let the warm sunlight caress her face; beside her hands was some file resting on the surface of the desk. Sometimes, among the flood of memories she allowed to master her thoughts for the one last time._

_As she stood there she noticed someone standing at the entrance, tall figure, dark hair, toned skin tone the pure lines of the profile, the touch of shade where neck met jaw, the shoulders, open and slightly broader than they used to be, the long, nervous hands shoved in his coats' pocket._

_"Tarika," he said, with a sharp nod. His voice was deeper and more serious than she'd expected, and it caught her off-guard._

_"Abhijeet," she greeted, in as cold a voice as she could muster._

_He was looking at her with an air of mild curiosity, as though he was only waiting for her answer, as though it wasn't going to reassess the whole complex of their relationship._

_"We can't be together..Tarika."_

She jerked awake, and for minutes lay on her back senselessly staring at the ceiling, while the last pulses of memory eased and calmed their throbbing in the silence. She straightened slowly and put her arms around her knees, silky curly black hair tumbling down the back of her nightgown. The five-years-old dream lingered a moment then reduced, giving way to a strange, echoing replay of last night's conversation. Vaibhav suggesting Abhijeet's name due to his best investigative skills, Rajat also explained that he had met Sr Insp Abhijeet few years back while he was still in CID and was fit for the job, rest of the others also supported them and said that he was the best to be asked. The concert of protest from the whole set of guests, assembled in praising him and decreeing that he was The Man We Need.

And then, of course, they had applied to her. She was the most neutral person of the lot, the best informed, the central axis and the only one who was appointed in charge, she could explain the matter professionally, without prejudice and without anything to conceal. And she, like a fool, had accepted to write the letter – since a phone call would be far too long and awkward – and in doing so had equally accepted to remain within them and meet him as legally responsible of the case.

Five years were such a heavy gap…

But the thirty-two years-old lawyer was already resurging, her mind set on tackling the subject in an accurate, professional, perfectly genuine way. It would have had to happen sooner or later anyway – meeting again. Better now and be done with it than looking forward to it with anxiety every damn minute of her life…

She had her breakfast brought up to her room that day, and spent most of the morning sitting at her desk in front of a blank sheet.

Professionalism or no, personal circumstances came bursting in anyway, whether she wanted it or not. What were you supposed to say – to write, even, to someone who had been your colleague,your friend your fiance, whom you were supposed to hate now, whom you hadn't seen for five long, heavy, overwhelming years? How were you ever meant to address that someone again? What could you do, when you were supposed to have gone on living without him?

The heading in itself was already a problem. Years and feelings came furtively into the lot, entangling themselves with words, intertwined with meanings, and generally produced chaos out of what should have been order. Both the formal 'Mr Srivastav' and the more familiar 'Abhijeet' felt insolent, out-of-purpose and disrespectful in their way. And then, of course, the whole letter derived from that. Explaining the matter of the letters and Mayank's office and Rajat being shot would not cause much trouble, if correctly, legally put, but that was only the skeleton and—

After hours – it seemed – of sitting and standing and pacing and sitting and standing and pacing and – such, she thought to go down to others, asking any one of them to write he letter. Surely, if they understood the actual point of the problem, they would placidly undertake, with no guilty conscience, the writing of the letter–

But no. This concerned her only; she would not have anybody exterior to this coming in. She certainly wouldn't let Abhijeet come to the manor before having him know what he was in for.

Rough drafts carpeted the floor, where they had been crumpled and thrown away in irritation. The bedroom was bathed in luminous sunlight flowing right in through the window, and which the glass crystallized into a thousand tainted glitters. It was beautiful day outside, clear and sunny, calling for exercise and sunbathing – and instead she was stuck here, reduced to confront herself with what had happened in the past and should have remained there.

At length, however, she took a decision. The problem was not so much those five-years-old events but the fact that she, as a lawyer of thirty-two, was not able to dissociate herself from the eighteen-years-old schoolgirl who kept hinting at things in her mind. Once locked away carefully, she would no longer be able to prevent her writing a business letter from a professional to another… yeah, right.

An hour later, she was able to look onto her work with feelings akin to satisfaction. It was everything it should have been from the start – detailed, accurate, politely formal and as impersonal as she should have wished for. It was neither cold nor conspicuous – from Miss Tarika Musale to Mr Abhijeet Srivastav, it was the very thing.

She ran down to her car and drove rapidly to the village, where she dropped her letter in the public mailbox, feeling as she watched it disappear that in all likelihood she should regret every word she had written every night until she got an answer. She wasn't disappointed.

…

Routine was an old friend by now. Years tended to soften the hearts, and it so happened that Routine sometimes dropped by around half-past four, sat down with him, and had tea. It was a silent and inscrutable companion, but it was better than no companion at all. Besides, he liked it that way. He was okay with this life.

One day, however, Routine did not fulfil the appointment that had been implicitly created between them. That day as day was nearing its end, and outside was shadowing the shades and shapes of the street, where lampposts were lit at regular intervals like floating yellowed orbs standing out of the foggy darkness, when his maid – an elderly woman who had worked for him from the last twelve years had always been sixty-six – brought him the evening post. He thanked her, told her she could go home now, and seated himself in one of the comfortable armchairs of his home, whose walls were lined with dark-brown bookcases, to flip through them.

Invitation letters, letters, business letters. Bills. One or two letters of thanks from former students, which he read with pleasure. The armchair was drawing him in its depths, the glow of the lamp onto his lap was warm and cosy, and the day had been a long one… he was beginning to feel sleepy… he would have nodded off if one letter in the lot had not stirred him out of his torpor.

In substance, the envelope was not any different from the rest of the others – there were his name and address neatly inscribed on it, the stamp and postmark indicating that it came from a small village whose name seemed to recall something… he was not exactly sure what. Apart from that the only difference with all the rest of the post was that it was handwritten – and this handwriting he would never have been able to confuse, even out of a thousand.

Surprisingly, there was no shell-shock, no cracks of thunder, no bolts of lightening striking him numb – no flashes of relentless memory, either. He stared a good bit, then turned the envelope over – nothing written on the back – and ripped it open. Inside he found two sheets of writing paper crammed with the same neat, thin handwriting. As he unfolded them and searched for the heading, his heart beating maybe more rapidly than it usually did, remarking his body was tense, he tried to relax against the cushions and accorded his full attention back to his letter.

Mr Srivastav—

He sighed, and burrowed herself deeper in the armchair. He had seen that coming a mile away. Bracing himself against whatever blows were to come, he went on reading.

**…**

Every day after she'd sent her letter Tarika expected to receive an answer, and every evening that passed untroubled brought more irritation for the next morning. And the universe seemed to have made a point of attacking her every time it could manage with more and more expectation – she would always be right in the way when the morning mail was brought in, or Mr Ferguson would always be on the phone, nodding carefully and taking down messages, when she came down the grand staircase. It didn't fail that morning either.

Mr Ferguson had ringed off by the time she had reached the hall. "Anything for me, Mr Ferguson?" she asked lightly, all the more casually that she had asked him every morning for half a week.

"Yes, Abhijeet just called."

Pause. She was evidently supposed to say something then, but her mouth had gone extremely dry. Which was silly, she reflected with irritation, it had to happen sooner or later. "Ah. Did he leave a message?"

"Yes, miss. He said he would reach here by tomorrow morning. He couldn't say the hour precisely, but around two or three."

"Oh – thank you very much."

And that was it, the thing which she was avoiding from the last five years was about to happen and that too very soon.

* * *

><p><strong>AN<strong>

**Extremely Sorry for the late update, was busy due to exams.**

**Hope you like this one, if not you can always mention in the review section.**

**If there are mistakes, please make sure to point it out :D**

**Thank You !**


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's note: Thank you for the reviews :D**

**AN: You have being warned!**

**...**

**Characters**

***Tarika:** Age : 32 : Started her career as Forensic expert's assistant but soon she realized that it's not her thing so switched back to the law field, did her best in it, raised to fame as prosecution lawyer. She is quite determined, intelligent and calm in demeanor in her professional life.

***Abhijeet:** Age:33 : Ex- CID Officer. He retired at the age of 30 due to a massive accident while apprehending the culprit, it resulted that his right leg got severed injured which cost him to limp while walking due to which he has to quit his job due to proven medically unfit, he is now retired and kind off work as trainer for the new officers. Short-tempered and Angry man but at the same time a very efficient officer.

***Ananya:** Tarika's Childhood friend who is fashion designer, got married to a quiet rich business tycoon and Now is a joint partner in their chain of companies.

***Mayank:** Ananya's husband, a business tycoon.

***Mr Ferguson : (65)Main servant **of sahani's family. He has the highest authority in the servants and keep and eye on everyone's activity. He has been working for Sahani's for the last 30 years.

***Vaibhav (32) Forensic Expert: **He is simple and helpful in nature, often helps people in need without expecting any much from them.

***Divyana: (32) Ex- CID Officer: **After her fear for blood got worse, she took an early retirement from CID and joined a local NGO, who works for the education of poor kids.

*** Marucs Smith (24) : **Son of a small scale industrialist Mr Smith Dsouza , who was murdered in his house and the son was arrested as the prime suspect in murdering his father, she remembered defending the case in court a two years back . The son was a crooked swindler who had got involved in all sorts of fishy business ever since he was fifteen, but in that case he was innocent. He is an idle person who lives on the money left by his father. He works as a side kick for Vikram.

*** Vikram Rajadhyaksh (35): **Son of a politician. A money greedy person,and quite immoral in values. He works as a finances and funds for various researches and study.

*** Rajat Kumar (34) well-known lawyer : **A well-known Prosecution/ defense lawyer. Has earned reputation and fame after he defeated many of the Top notch businessman and poisonous pharmaceutical companies due to their illegal activities.

*** Arundhati Iyer (46) Journalist : **She has received many awards after she brought the issue of child-trafficking cases

*** Sukriti Roy (55) Forensic Practitioner **: An expert and the head of Delhi Forensic Departments.

**...**

**Unveiled Murderer**

**Part VI**

She took long, deep breaths as she sat up, wiping sweat from her face, and gazed vaguely at the sunlight-bathed, window-shaped rectangle on the floor. The glow was less brilliant, less warm than it used to be, it was more autumnal; outside, the leaves were radiantly red and gold. That was changing, too – endlessly.

She shook her head and hastened out of bed. She was shivering with cold but she nonetheless flung the windowpane open, enjoying the way the lingering remnants of fantasy and confusion from her dream all drifted away with the morning's sunlight and warmth, and left her as only companions rational thought and sensibility. More than enough, considering the events of the day to come. Imagination left her mind like a bird taking flight, and she was brought with the more serious matter of her wardrobe.

She selected clothes, matched them, put them on, checked their effect in her mirror, opting for dark pants and a black shirt. All this black made her dressing strict enough, but the clothes themselves weren't too severe. It fit the circumstances. Her hair. She left it loose, having hesitated for a low knot – a sharp, tight bun.

Morning gestures – routine gestures – everyday gestures, and she accomplished them with vague eyes and a wandering mind. She rather felt like a soldier on the last morning of his leave; a few more hours of freedom and peace, and then back up to the front.

She glanced at the clock when she was done; it was half-past nine. Just enough time to take a rapid breakfast and then retreat within the boundaries of the library, with her files and her proofs, to sort out her notes and the letters and her share of reality more properly before she would have to hand them all over.

The drive was a pleasant one – or at least it would have been if he hadn't had other things in his mind, and had had leisure enough to watch the panorama. Forests and valleys and mountains elapsed by without his focusing on any other thing than the road, and his thoughts.

When he arrived within sight of the house, he stared at it like an awakening man, and as he pulled up in front of the grand building, got out of his car and walked up the steps to the main entry, he couldn't help remembering the last time he'd come here. It hadn't been a happy time altogether, but… it had had its moments.

The door was opened by a butler, who said, in a pregnant voice, "Mr Abhijeet? Tarika Mam has been waiting for you. Please follow me." And ushered him in a collection of rooms and passages, without their ever meeting anyone else than a grey-clad maid who scurried away with a muffled shriek, like a small, frightened mouse.

. Yes, of course, she was not Tarika ji now, she was Miss Musale by now. Likewise, her letter had been a polite, formal, business-only one, with a precision and accuracy that allowed no suspicions to rise: she was legally in charge of the case, and his presence had been requested by some of the guests she had mentioned, point made. Himself had been professionally interested in the problem, or – very likely – he shouldn't have come.

He and his guide finally reached a grand double door, masterly carved out of oak, whose pane the butler opened without knocking and then stepped aside to let him in. And for the first time in Five years, Abhijeet was faced with Tarika again.

For a fraction of second, the mere holding of one's breath, she was wearing a black shirt that finely outlined her slender bust, and her hair tumbled down her back in a sculpture-like way, as long and curly black and silky as it had always been.

"Mam, Mr Abhijeet has arrived," said the butler in a booming voice, startling them both. In a rapid succession of moves, Tarika started, turned her eyes to them, opened her mouth, and finally thanked him. "Not at all, miss," and the door closed upon him, leaving them alone with the sunlight.

A beat.

Then the moment passed and she was advancing towards him with an outstretched hand, a polite smile, and on her lips a cordial, "Mr Abhijeet? I'm glad you could come. Your presence was very much desired – by all of the guests. Do sit down."

Abhijeet did sit down, turned down a cigarette – he had never smoked, neither had she, and she knew it very well – and demanded more precisions about the case before he did anything with it – refuse it or accept it. She then launched in a long, detailed narration, which he attentively listened to, while leafing through the file she had given him. It was evidently a lawyer's work: she had carefully labelled each and every one of the anonymous letters after the date and location it had been found at, and very minutely noted down every little event, however insignificant t first sight, that she had happened to witness. With this he should be able to work on this case as though he'd been there from the beginning.

She talked for the best part of a half-hour, and after a while he neglected the notebook and contented himself with listening to her. There were but little questions to ask – she gave the answers spontaneously, before he'd time to demand them. Each time she spoke with a smartness and acumen which honoured her work; he could hardly have done better himself. But even of that he tended to grow weary – the best surprise here was the mellow curves of her voice, the resurgence of memories, and the fact maybe that at thirty-two she was even more beautiful, if possible, than she had been at twenty-eight.

Only once she stopped. She'd been frowning in disgust at one of the letters in the folder, which had evidently been addressed to her and represented a naked woman threatened by a sort of blind weapon overhead, and when surprised at her sudden silence he looked up, her cheeks showed a flush of embarrassment. His eyes met hers, and she looked startled, then hastily resumed her speech in a shaky voice that soon got firmer.

When she had finished, Abhijeet sat a considerable time in silence, considering the problem at hand. The whole scheme looked like it was taken straight out of a mystery book – and, very probably, it was. The culprit had evidently fished his moves out of different detective novels here and there. The real feat was the success at combining those random pieces into an actual plot… but this kind of anonymous-letters-scheme had a snag, and an obvious one: the dropping of the cards was too irregular and too hazardous never to be surprised into doing something unexpected…

He'd kept silent for too long a time, and Tarika ji – sorry, Miss Musale was wanting her answer. A hesitation here. His decision was taken, but the formality of the letter sufficiently showed that had the choice been on her side, the request would have been addressed to somebody else.

"It's a pretty problem," he acknowledged.

"Very pretty," she said acidly. "Yet my clients wish most of all to avoid scandal. We cannot let this continue much longer – there must be a solution, and we've got to find it quickly."

Vaguely noting, in some part of her mind, that 'they' had tended to become 'we' alongside her narration, Abhijeet lowered his voice for no good reason – they were alone in the library, bar the sunlight – to say, "Listen. If you – don't want me here, I can call someone else to do the job. People like Daya, – they would tackle this as well as I would."

He straightened on his chair and waited for her reaction. She was biting the inside of her lower lip, in an attitude that suddenly was no longer practical and professional – in flickers, Miss Musale was disappearing, and Tarika – the few years younger old Tarika, only grown and knowing better – was showing up at intervals. She recovered her file to do something, fidgeted a second with a lock of black hair falling on her shoulder, then looked back up with a determined look and said, "I wouldn't trust them with this half as I would trust you,Abhijeet."

It was like a breath of pure air combined with a cold shower. He remembered smiling, relaxing, feeling better in his body and in his mind – then the first thing he very distinctly recalled afterwards was asking after the exact number of guests and their names. From that moment on, everything was very business-like and easily led.

"Well – there's Vaibhav, of course," Tarika said thoughtfully. "It was he who first mentioned your name when we were all wondering who to call. He said since we were in CID, we should assigned this job to you."

"ohh.." Abhijeet merely nodded.

"And then even Mr Rajat said, you would be the good choice so.."

"Rajat is here.." Abhijeet asked in surprised tone. Tarika nodded.

"We met over a case while I was still in CID. It was rather ironical – We accused the man he defended, and I suppose the culprit would have got away with ten more years' incarceration if anyone else had done the job. We talked after the trial – he is a sensible, very intelligent man."

"Very," said Tarika, eagerly. "He is the reason I decided myself to become a lawyer – his impassivity and determination at court have impressed on me.—"

"I know," Abhijeet began and then cut short, and asked, who else.

"Arundhati Iyer – I think you know her, as well." He nodded without looking up and went on writing unperturbed. "And someone else who said she had met you – I don't know if you remember her – Sukriti Roy…"

"Sukriti Roy?" He looked up, frowning. "Is she there, as well?"

"Yes," Tarika confirmed, with a puzzled look. "Do you happen… I mean… do you know her well?"

"Well isn't the word," Abhijeet said, still frowning. "We have met twice only – but I am not likely to forget them. She was called to examine a dead man who'd been found in his flat three days after the death – I had been called there, too – and the autopsy went completely wrong. She and the other doctor inspecting the body didn't agree at all on the results."

"okay.."

Tarika rapidly described Marcus Smith and Vikram Rajadhyaksh,

"What they both are doing here, I can't imagine," she said thoughtfully. "The only think I can think of is that their research – whatever that is – needs a substantial financial background – and he has been called here for that purpose. But the whole matter is impossible to make out," she added vehemently, "They all seem to have gathered here under circumstances entirely coincidental – they never talk of anything concerning a work of any kind – their research is making no sense at all."

"Have you ever witnessed something that makes you think there isn't one?"

"All the time. Everyday."

"Then there probably is one." He smiled and snapped his notebook shut. "Very well," he said, standing up. "I shall have to go back to Mumbai to fetch my things and cancel my training sessions for the upcoming weeks. I suppose I can lodge here – I will have a greater strength of action than if reside in some lodge in the nearest village."

"Yes – certainly," said Tarika, taken aback. "There are dozens of deserted rooms in this mansion – I can get Mr Ferguson to prepare one for you by this evening. Had you rather be on the first floor or—"

"The second floor would be perfect – I'll be able to move more freely. Well—" he extended a hand, which she shook, "thank you, for this information. I shall be back by dinnertime." She'd walked him over to the door and he opened it and faced her again. "Have a good day."

"Thank you. 'Till this evening."

She watched him walk down the corridor. He hadn't passed past a few doors that one of them opened, and a grave voice called after him, "Mr Abhijeet!"

"Ah ..Mr Rajat," Abhijeet said, turning back. "I'm glad to see you. I wanted to tell you about—" They walked down together towards the hall, their voices gradually dropping to a whisper, then as they turned past a corner, into silence. Tarika went back into the library and closed the door slowly.

She leant against the wooden panel, arms folded, and stared at the golden flickers of dust in the sunlight that fell luminously in through the windows, wondering which of them had made the greatest mistake – him in accepting the case, or herself in turning down his proposition to bow back out of the matter.

Abhijeet's first evening among the household went off without a hitch. If the guests' defiance towards him was palpable, they nonetheless tried their best to act as genuinely as possible and put at ease; yet among them, only Rajat and Arundhati were perfectly tranquil with him and did not show any sign of exterior anxiety.

Or interior, thought Tarika, who by now had come to know them well enough to be able to sight-read their body language. Their palms were open, their shoulders relaxed, their features calm, their voices clear and sound. Either they had mastered the art of Poker Face to an unmovable degree (they probably had for all she knew) or they actually felt no distrust in his presence. Which, if either of them was the Poltergeist, was rather a problem…

What about him? Did he feel anything, apart from intellectual excitement? Was this – only a case among others, a mere event in his investigation career? What was he thinking, as he spoke in a low voice to Rajat, or when he sat with his cup of coffee, like he did now, and observed the room with half-lidded eyes, almost as if he slept –his gaze flickering from one to the other in an irregular and seemingly incoherent succession.

He had played chess with Marcus, talked with Arundhati into a half-hour long conversation, opposed an amused to Sukriti's dark glares, . Passing between groups, Tarika tried to concentrate herself on the matter at hand, but in vain – her eyes always strayed away on him, on the person whom with he talked, on his chess moves from one to the other in the sitting-room.

By mid-evening, he was deep in conversation with Vaibhav and herself was seated not very far with Devyana, when Vikram joined them.

Tarika didn't wait there till the end of the day. She walked abruptly to the nearest window and stood there in silence, arms folded, staring straight into the night outside. The dark pane reflected lights form the village, lodged narrowly between the black shapes of the mountains. She closed her eyes.

Abhijeet joined her after a few minutes, having succeeded in disentangling himself from Vaibhav's cordial grip, sitting on the window seat and leaning forward on his elbows.

Tarika kept silent for a second. "Have you found anything?" she asked then, Abhijeet looked sharply at her and then away. "I'm not certain," he said slowly. "I do have suspicions. By the way, I wish you could show me the quad where you found those footsteps after the wreckage of Mayank's office, Miss Tarika."

Evidently he had studied the file in depth before dinner – he had found the weak flank of that incident immediately. "You know they'll all be gone," Tarika said sternly. "It has rained ever since, and it's been more than a week."

"I know," he said. "I just want to see the location. Would you show me in the morning?"

Tarika assented to that, and they remained some time longer in silence. This was growing to be more awkward then they had suspected at first. Then Abhijeet was called away and Tarika stayed alone in front of the dark pane, thinking.

Later that night, when she walked back to her room, it was to find a white card on her floor as she opened the door. Sighing, she picked it up. It ran, We are ten now. We can begin at last. Underneath it spread mockingly verses of a cheap riddle, which made her shudder in disgust,

_Ten little kittens were left all alone.._

_One got trap and nine were left alone_


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's note: Thank you for the reviews :D**

**AN: You have being warned!**

**...**

**Characters**

***Tarika:** Age : 32 : Started her career as Forensic expert's assistant but soon she realized that it's not her thing so switched back to the law field, did her best in it, raised to fame as prosecution lawyer. She is quite determined, intelligent and calm in demeanor in her professional life.

***Abhijeet:** Age:33 : Ex- CID Officer. He retired at the age of 30 due to a massive accident while apprehending the culprit, it resulted that his right leg got severed injured which cost him to limp while walking due to which he has to quit his job due to proven medically unfit, he is now retired and kind off work as trainer for the new officers. Short-tempered and Angry man but at the same time a very efficient officer.

***Ananya:** Tarika's Childhood friend who is fashion designer, got married to a quiet rich business tycoon and Now is a joint partner in their chain of companies.

***Mayank:** Ananya's husband, a business tycoon.

***Mr Ferguson : (65)Main servant **of sahani's family. He has the highest authority in the servants and keep and eye on everyone's activity. He has been working for Sahani's for the last 30 years.

***Vaibhav (32) Forensic Expert: **He is simple and helpful in nature, often helps people in need without expecting any much from them.

***Divyana: (32) Ex- CID Officer: **After her fear for blood got worse, she took an early retirement from CID and joined a local NGO, who works for the education of poor kids.

*** Marucs Smith (24) : **Son of a small scale industrialist Mr Smith Dsouza , who was murdered in his house and the son was arrested as the prime suspect in murdering his father, she remembered defending the case in court a two years back . The son was a crooked swindler who had got involved in all sorts of fishy business ever since he was fifteen, but in that case he was innocent. He is an idle person who lives on the money left by his father. He works as a side kick for Vikram.

*** Vikram Rajadhyaksh (35): **Son of a politician. A money greedy person,and quite immoral in values. He works as a finances and funds for various researches and study.

*** Rajat Kumar (34) well-known lawyer : **A well-known Prosecution/ defense lawyer. Has earned reputation and fame after he defeated many of the Top notch businessman and poisonous pharmaceutical companies due to their illegal activities.

*** Arundhati Iyer (46) Journalist : **She has received many awards after she brought the issue of child-trafficking cases

*** Sukriti Roy (55) Forensic Practitioner **: An expert and the head of Delhi Forensic Departments.

**...**

**Unveiled Murderer**

**Part VII**

At ten o'clock the next morning, they were standing together in the quad, and Abhijeet was crouching in the wet grass – it had rained again that night, and the sky was grey and overcast – under the windows of Mayank's study room. Standing behind him, Tarika watched as he parted the plants carefully and inspected the ground. His back was tense, denoting his concentration; she looked at it then rolled back up to the shoulders, underlined by the lines of the well-cut jacket. The nape bent and shadowed by locks of black hair. The hair itself, dark and silky—

"Are you certain you found them there?"

"Positive," said Tarika. "I told you, you wouldn't find anything."

"I wasn't looking for traces of anything," he said. "When did you say you had found them? In the morning after the incident?"

"Yes…" A glimpse of the profile, as he turned for a fraction of second to glance at a bed of some lilies. The rapid move of the arm, the hand brushing against the leaves of a shrub, the elbow retreating to the knee. Then he straightened up and got to his feet, brushing his clothes and interrupting without knowing it her contemplation.

"After you had asked Mr Ferguson to lock all the doors and windows giving onto the quad?"

"Yes."

"After it had rained all night?"

"Yes."

He looked at her, sharp black eyes piercing a hole in his chest, all the way past his heart and straight into his soul. His breath caught and he released it slowly, wishing his heart would stop skipping beats. Why was she affecting him that way? It had been five years, hadn't it?

"Tell me you haven't fallen for that," she said in a half-amused voice.

"I haven't!" he protested in a surge of perfectly genuine irritation.

"The footsteps that, I found were made after the incident!" She realized she sounded just like an unnerved schoolgirl, coughed, and resumed in a more professional manner, "if they had been made before the culprit wrecked Mayank's office, on his way inside the room, like he evidently wants us to believe, the rain would have washed them out since it only came afterwards. As it is, our man, or woman, made up the evidence of his having gone through the window, in a way to divert us from the door. We were supposed – or, at least, I was supposed to make the association rain plus wet ground plus footsteps without a second thought."

"Impressive," Abhijeet said. He had a small, fleeting smile, and Tarika suddenly knew what had changed: the embarrassment of resurging memories and his restraint in his relationship with her had moved into a straightforward attitude. If that was what he wanted and she followed, it would inevitably bring conflict and discord between them…

"I suppose he had gone in with a picklock the first time over, and then the same the second time, when he came to make the prints," he added gravely, "since Mr Ferguson and all the other workers had closed all doors and windows giving onto the quad, so there was no other way in. So we'll fight this until we fall. Very well."

"There had to be something fishy about his ability to enter the room, then," she said, and he looked sharply at her, and then smiled. "The lock is rather a complicated one, and only Mr Ferguson had the key to it. I asked him. Not one of his bunches has ever disappeared."

"You're right – there must be a reason behind all this drama. I don't suppose he or she should have gone to such an extreme scheme if there hadn't been something important he wanted most to conceal. It is nonetheless extremely clever of him – or her – to use both the weather and the necessary conditions. Of course, if it had rained earlier in the evening, the times would be so watertight there would have been no way at all to deduce the footprints were false – anyway, it's all extremely well-thought."

"If you would kindly stop admiring the intellectual capacities of the lunatic we're trying to catch," Tarika said irritatingly, and at that moment it began to rain abruptly. Heavy drops crushed against the walls and the stones in the quad, rapidly darkening them; by the time they had retreated safe and dry inside the building, it was pouring more and more rapidly and rattling against the glass of the double-window Abhijeet was closing behind them.

"By the way, I forgot to note this in my report," Tarika began as they directed themselves in the general direction of the library, and she told him about the mysterious phone call and after that bumping into Rajat which made her believe that he was a suspect. Abhijeet listened in silence and considered carefully while she told him her deductions and suspicions on that matter

Abhijeet said lightly. "I think Vikram is much more intelligent than he lets pretend. In fact," he added, more thoughtfully, "I should think he is one of the most likely to be the Poltergeist – along with Rajat and Arundhati and which of them do you think is the more likely to be our culprit?"

"Actually, I have my suspicions on three of them ," she said without a hesitation. "Arundhati's character and judgement appear to me to be much too just and straightforward – then again, it might just be pretence. Besides, if she is our culprit, she's all the more likely to lay traps behind her and never leave absolute evidence of her having committed a crime. We might never pin her down to anything."

"By the way, I think you mentioned your decision with Vaibhav of taking turns in the building at night – did you?"

"Only the first nights," Tarika confessed sheepishly. "After the aggression on Rajat and the wreckage of Mayank's study room, we kinda dropped it. Being only two, we couldn't do much anyway."

"Well, now we're three," Abhijeet said. "And we can add up Mr Ferguson. That makes four. We should be able to do some good work that way. We'll begin tonight, if you don't mind."

Tarika said she didn't mind, and sighed. What with nightmares, Abhijeet's presence in the daytime, insomnia, aggressions and now those night turns in the passageways, it seemed that somebody somewhere had decided to deprive her of sleepful nights lately.

Walking all alone in a mansion at night, with hardly a lamp torch as faithful companion and protection through heaven and hell, is always creepy. And the fright makes it even bigger if you're actually looking for a deranged lunatic creeping in the darkness, with a mental constitution and no hesitation at all at shooting you straight out. Tarika ruminated this as she walked down the corridors, the light ray of her torch swaying from wall to wall and reflecting in the dark windowpanes.

Of course it was the only means they could come up with to put obstacles in the Poison Pen's way, and probably one of the most effective. It was next to impossible that none of them, during their respective watches, should not come across the Poltergeist one time or another – but who of the two should have to repent that meeting was difficult to say. There could be a gun pointing at you every corner you turned, and seeing the face of your aggressor would be of no use at all if you died.

Well, Abhijeet would have to be sorry, she thought fiercely.

A turn. Another turn. Doors on her left and right, and pieces of furniture – a long bookcase lining the wall, an enormous wardrobe in a corner, a smooth, crimson-dark curtain flying in the way. A row of windows, and in the trailing light of her torch she saw her face like a vampire's pale and hollow. She passed on.

The silence was complete and oppressive. Not a sound; not even the rapid noise of a mouse scurrying in a hole of the wall. Not a footstep either. And yet she knew that somewhere in the house two people at least were awake: Abhijeet, preparing to take the round after her, and the Poison Pen, typing out new notes to be found tomorrow. It didn't make her feel any better.

She walked on, sweeping the ray of her torch on her surroundings, and the ottomans, cabinets, firescreens, shelves, writing desks, aspidistras, etc., seemed to move in front of her irritatingly and ask why she was waking them up. She disentangled herself from a jumble of chairs around a rosewood table and hesitated between turning right or left when a sound arouse her attention onto a closed door farther ahead.

It sounded like a creaking, only softer and mellower. Standing in front of the door with one hand on the knob, Tarika marked a pause. This felt very much like a booby-trap and she was about to walk into it head-first, but, damn it! one was a black-belt karateka or one wasn't. She thought of Abhijeet. It would serve him right if she died.

She opened the door, and an extremely swift thing with black fur and shining greenish eyes shot straight out of the darkness and leaped into her arms. She staggered backwards in the corridor, trying simultaneously not to fall off in surprise, not to drop her torch, and to keep her heart from beating erratically, and found herself carrying an extremely terrified cat whose claws were digging in her shoulder.

A cat. She sighed, feeling very foolish with herself. It was just a cat, probably Radha's or Cook's – nothing to be afraid of. It was shivering in her arms, a very nervous animal. Just what was it doing in this room…

She peered inside, stroking it behind its ears, but nothing conspicuous or threatening came out of the darkness. The cat – now beginning to calm down – had probably come in through the door or the window, and a maid or the wind had slammed it shut. She closed the door slowly, still petting the cat – it seemed to feel better now that it was in safety: it had cradled in her arms and was purring gently.

"Yeah, right – it's okay now," Tarika told it. Its right ear twitched. "Only you were scared to death only a moment ago, and you nearly scared me to death, too." Her voice was crackling but it got better. The cat meowed, and that was the sound she'd heard, only it was mellower and less terrified. She recovered her torch, and the cat climbed higher on her arms finally to drape itself over her shoulders, its tail curling itself around her neck. It was still purring, rubbing its small head against her hair. "C'mon, let's go," she said to it. "We've got a poltergeist to catch."

"Tarika?"

"What!" She jumped a good feet high. The black hair and white shirt of Vaibhav's came into shape in the torch's light, bringing sudden relief after sudden fear; but his usually smiling face was worried and there was a glimpse of madness in the eyes. He was squinting to see her, blinded by the ray of light.

"Thank God I've found you," his voice was shaking, "I've been searching – come with me. There's been an – ah – incident."

"What's happened?" she said, starting after him.

"Come on." He turned back in the opposite direction, so fast she had to run to keep up.

He led her straight to his rooms, where were gathered Devyana, sitting on a chair and shivering, and Arudnhati, holding a glass of water for her. Abhijeet was standing at the window, looking out into the night; when Tarika came in he turned to her with a grave look. Vaibhav himself slumped in an armchair by his wife's and rubbed his face tiredly.

"What's going on?" panted Tarika, and the cat disentangled itself from her shoulders, jumped soundlessly to the floor, and trotted up to Arundhati. It curled around her leg, meowing. Tarika looked at it for a second, catching her breath, and repeated her unanswered question.

"Well," the older doctor said, glancing at Vaibhav, who was comfort her, but Arundhati interrupted her.

"I think I'd better tell her." ABhijeet gave a slight nod, and he turned back to Tarika. "It seems that Devyana has been aggressed in a corridor," she said bluntly. Devyana shivered as she remembered and Vaibhav gripped her hand so hard his knuckles whitened. Tarika dropped herself in a chair and said, "What?"

"From what we've managed to understand from her," Arundhati went on, more coherently, "she had forgotten a book in the drawing room and was returning here when somebody grabbed her neck from behind and – obviously attempted to strangle her. There was no light on, and she couldn't see anything. But the culprit – whoever it was – had an iron grip around her neck and told about her baby, how she wouldn't want it to die with her, and – things," she cut short, seeing that Devyana's eyes were filling with tears.

Tarika felt sick suddenly. She knew the man was deranged, but this—"Did you see at least whether it was a man or a woman?" she asked slowly to fight nausea.

"N-no," Devyana stammered, and wiping away tears, regained some composure. "He was talking in a low voice, so it c-could have b-been anyone." (Tarika nonetheless noticed that she had said 'he' rather than 'she': her subconscious had assimilated her aggressor as a man. In which case – it proved absolutely nothing.)

"And what happened then?"

Vaibhav took up, while his wife drained down glass of water. "Devyana said the – person let her go suddenly, and disappeared in the shadows. She ran back here. At first she was too confused to tell us anything but afterwards – I thought I'd come after you."

Not the best thing to do, Tarika thought grimly. If she had gone on her round she might have surprised the poltergeist. Abhijeet's eyes met hers for a second, and she knew he was thinking the same. She wondered why he hadn't stopped Vaibhav from going to fetch her.

"I wish I could do something to help," Arundhati said gravely, sitting as well and petting the cat, which had stretched lazily on her lap.

"I don't think you can," Abhijeet said, with a sombre look. He walked up to the couple. "Devyana, I'm sorry to rub it in, but if you can remember anything about your aggressor – anything that might help us identify him – I wish you would tell us. It could help us very much, since you're the only one who's had a physical contact with the – the culprit." He didn't look as though he expected much of an answer.

He didn't get one. Devyana apologized, but the shock and fright and confusion had been too great and she hadn't been able to discern anything. Abhijeet smiled, said it was quite all right, and laid his hand on Vaibhav's shoulder for a second before he walked back up to the window.

The ever-ready Mr Ferguson came in then, with water, medicines and tea . Tarika drained down half a cup of it before Abhijeet took her aside and asked her to ' to go back to their rooms & they would abandon their stakeout for this night.' Tarika nodded and decided to leave.

But not before, the two women paid their goodnights, gave Devyana a few more words of comfort, and exited the room into the corridor. As they walked together towards the great staircase, the cat trotted ahead of them with a dignified attitude and its black tail in the air, leading the way.

"Is it yours?" Tarika asked.

"No. It must be the household cat. He knows where to find me, though – in the evening he comes to visit me in my rooms because he knows I've got milk. Where did you find him?"

"Locked up in a guestroom while I was doing my round."

"Aha. Any luck?"

Tarika looked at her. "None. And yet I was turning in the surroundings," she deplored. "If Vaibhav hadn't come to find me, I might have run across our poltergeist and those dirty tricks would have been done and over with. Devyana a pregnant woman, too," she added disgustedly. "I wonder why Abhijeet didn't prevent Vaibhav from coming after me."

"He must have been worried for you," Arundhati said in her cool voice.

She hadn't thought of that. "Yes. Well. Maybe. At least tonight exculpates you from being our culprit, since you were sitting with Abhijeet and Vaibhav when Devyana was aggressed. And it narrows the spectre of likely suspects." That was the only good thing she could see in all this mess.

"Unless I have an accomplice," Arundhati reminded her. Farther ahead, the cat stopped at a corner and looked back at them, its grey-green pupils shining in the dark. It waited till they had joined it before it started up again. "We could be two doing the job – or several. For all you know, we could very well all be involved."

"Oh, damn," said Tarika, irritatingly. "This case is starting to get on my nerves."

* * *

><p>Hope you like it, if not mention in the review section. :)<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note: Thank you for the reviews :D**

**AN: You have being warned!**

**...**

**Characters**

***Tarika:** Age : 32 : Started her career as Forensic expert's assistant but soon she realized that it's not her thing so switched back to the law field, did her best in it, raised to fame as prosecution lawyer. She is quite determined, intelligent and calm in demeanor in her professional life.

***Abhijeet:** Age:33 : Ex- CID Officer. He retired at the age of 30 due to a massive accident while apprehending the culprit, it resulted that his right leg got severed injured which cost him to limp while walking due to which he has to quit his job due to proven medically unfit, he is now retired and kind off work as trainer for the new officers. Short-tempered and Angry man but at the same time a very efficient officer.

***Ananya:** Tarika's Childhood friend who is fashion designer, got married to a quiet rich business tycoon and Now is a joint partner in their chain of companies.

***Mayank:** Ananya's husband, a business tycoon.

***Mr Ferguson : (65)Main servant **of sahani's family. He has the highest authority in the servants and keep and eye on everyone's activity. He has been working for Sahani's for the last 30 years.

***Vaibhav (32) Forensic Expert: **He is simple and helpful in nature, often helps people in need without expecting any much from them.

***Divyana: (32) Ex- CID Officer: **After her fear for blood got worse, she took an early retirement from CID and joined a local NGO, who works for the education of poor kids.

*** Marucs Smith (24) : **Son of a small scale industrialist Mr Smith Dsouza , who was murdered in his house and the son was arrested as the prime suspect in murdering his father, she remembered defending the case in court a two years back . The son was a crooked swindler who had got involved in all sorts of fishy business ever since he was fifteen, but in that case he was innocent. He is an idle person who lives on the money left by his father. He works as a side kick for Vikram.

*** Vikram Rajadhyaksh (35): **Son of a politician. A money greedy person,and quite immoral in values. He works as a finances and funds for various researches and study.

*** Rajat Kumar (34) well-known lawyer : **A well-known Prosecution/ defense lawyer. Has earned reputation and fame after he defeated many of the Top notch businessman and poisonous pharmaceutical companies due to their illegal activities.

*** Arundhati Iyer (46) Journalist : **She has received many awards after she brought the issue of child-trafficking cases

*** Sukriti Roy (55) Forensic Practitioner **: An expert and the head of Delhi Forensic Departments.

**...**

**Unveiled Murderer**

**Part VIII**

Devyana's aggression was meant to remain in the most complete secrecy. Apart from the couple, Abhijeet and Tarika herself, only Mr Ferguson and Arundhati knew about it, and their discretion could be relied upon. Nonetheless, it so happened that the following evening, while Tarika was working in the library after dinner, Marcus burst in as usual and asked after effects 'about Devyana's incident yesterday night.'

Tarika put her pen brusquely down. "Who told you about that?"

"Everybody knows," he said, surprised. "It was dinner's main topic at our end of the table. Didn't you listen? What is it all about? Nobody seemed to know for sure. Do you?"

"I know all about it," Tarika murmured, cursing her mentally for not paying attention to the animated conversation that had taken place at the other end of the table. But Abhijeet had been talking in front of her, and she'd been much too absorbed by the case he was describing to—"Who told you about it?" she persisted.

"Rajat Sir did," Marcus said,

"How did Rajat knew about this?" was the immediate question in her mind but she knew that even if she asks him about this he will never answer her for sure and continued listening Marcus who was looking more puzzled. "Rajat had told something to him about it, and he wanted to know whether I actually knew anything more. I didn't. What is the entire bloody racket all about anyway?"

She really needed to stop personal feelings from interfering with this business. "It's – complicated. I'm afraid I can't tell much more about it than you already know – and I wish," she added hastily, seeing that he prepared to speak again, "you wouldn't disturb Devyana with it, either. She's been sufficiently shocked as it is. In fact, if you could try and shut the matter up – switch topics when it's brought forwards, that kind of thing – it would be very helpful."

He assented, now thorough confused. "Of course I will, if you want me to – I say, is this our friend the poltergeist playing his tricks again?" Tarika nodded, and he looked positively thrilled. Presently he recovered himself. "I'll do my best – when I can."

Tarika was about to say 'Good boy' and pat his arm, but contented herself with thanking him properly. He opened his mouth, on a good way to get to talking again, but the door opened then, and Abhijeet came in.

He glanced rapidly at them both. Somehow his eyes seemed to be a darker black, but that may be only the room's darkness. "Marcus, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I would like to talk with Tarika. In private," he emphasized

Marcus had twitched the way he called his name but he complied without as much as a protest. "Oh!," he said, "I'll leave you two alone. Yes, of course. Er – goodnight." And he left.

Abhijeet dropped himself in an armchair by the hearth, picked up the poker, and straightened a log that threatened to fall off. "Well!" he said. "It seems that our man – or woman – whichever – doesn't like incognito."

"Of course he doesn't," Tarika said. "His whole threat-letters business wouldn't mean anything if he remained in the shadows. He's got to show off, of else his carefully thought-out plan all goes west." She seated herself opposite him. "Well, it's not for the worst," she said wearily. "They were bound to learn about it sometime or other. How bad can it possibly be anyway?"

"Bad, rather," Abhijeet said, looking worried. "Now that they know about the possible violence of the culprit, they may do foolish things in case they're attacked. And get themselves killed, rather sooner than they were meant to be. Had they not known anything, they would have been better protected."

Tarika was really tired. To her discharge, this had been a long day, full of more triumphing letters found and decisions to be taken, and she was exhausted; besides, she really couldn't help herself anymore. Not after days of closing Abhijeet's presence around her, and feeling like a helpless doll.

"Ah, yes – protection's your greatest motto, isn't it?"

He stared angrily into the fire. "I knew you would come up with this sometime or other. You wouldn't leave it all buried in the past, would you? No, of course not – it was stupid of me to think so."

"It's a difficult thing to forget," snarled Tarika, who was now too well launched to come back to more solid grounds. She was suddenly taken with an immense hatred for the man sitting in front of her. She went on, regardless of the consequences of such a speech, "being lied to for an entire year by the one person I thought I could most trust. Whom I thought trusted me, too."

"You know perfectly why I did all this," he said, still staring determinedly into the flames. "And it's been five years. Its past, Tarika. Can't we leave it all there? Or do we have to roam over the same old quarrel, all over again?" He poked savagely into the fire.

"It's not something I can forget so easily," Tarika said coolly. "And I'm not going to pretend it never happened, because it did." He looked at her, dark eyes, and she was immediately breathless. Silence ensued.

"I see," he said finally, after what felt like an eternity of fires flaring high in the hearth. "What you really mean is, you don't want me here at all, not even to solve this case. I'm only bringing back ugly memories – a nuisance, in your perfectly thought-out life. My simple presence here revolts you, doesn't it?" He stopped, at the worst moment. There was absolutely nothing to be said, at this point, that wouldn't put matters worse. "But in that case, why call for me at all?"

"I didn't exactly have the choice," Tarika said, leaning forward like an angry animal. "They needed somebody they could all trust, they specifically requested you, and I spent one hell of a time writing that bloody letter – I didn't get a chance to say anything against the whole plot of calling you up. My opinion wasn't even asked for." She was breathless when she finished, and felt very much as though she was about to cry. Tears stung at her eyes, but nothing more, no repressed sob chocking in her throat, no silvery pearl curving down her cheek, that might have saved the situation for them.

Silence, again. This time it was worse than the first. It heaved around them, filling the room with mist and keeping them from moving; separating them from the rest of the house as though the library was one single, particular entity, roaming forward into the night.

"Look," Abhijeet said, eventually, and the tension instead of breaking down built up a little tighter. "We can't go on like this. If we do we won't be able to bear each other's presence, and we need to work together, not rip each other to shreds. Can't we call a truce for the time being – until we solve this case. We'll find the culprit, we'll catch him and be done with it – then I'll take you out to coffee and… back away from your life. For good." He paused. "What do you think?"

Tarika nodded slowly. "It suits me. I – – I'm tired." She relaxed in her armchair and rubbed her eyes. "I'm so tired."

"So am I."

The fire crackled. Outside, raindrops began to rattle on the windowpanes, slowly dissolving into the rainy skies of Autumn. And, with slowly crawling in with the twelve strokes of midnight, things began to shift, imperceptibly.

...

A routine of a sort settled in back again. Both Tarika and Abhijeet were careful not to cross the boundaries they had themselves traced between them, keeping, therefore, on the solid grounds of formal politeness and methodical thinking. Curiously, the other guests seemed to adopt the same policy of discretion: it appeared that Devyana's accident had finally awakened them to the danger and gravity of the situation, and their defiance toward one another was growing stronger. Even Vikram and Marcus, who usually were the life and soul of their elongated evenings, now kept their distances; and only Sukriti's, gravely serious and sombre-looking, remained unchanged.

Quarrels sprung out of nowhere, unforeseen, and no-one would dare walking alone in the corridors, especially at night – however, since the trust between the guests was rapidly thinning out, staying in one's room became more and more frequent. Tension was palpable between them, and their defiance toward Tarika and Abhijeet made it almost impossible to get any substantial information from any of the lot.

Surprisingly, no extraordinary event came to life within the whole following week, more than a nasty bunch of letters and the discovery of equally nasty messages left in red paint on the walls. Tarika had thought that their culprit would have wanted to strike them fast and hard, in an unforgettable manner; but by the end of the week, she rather believed he delightedly enjoyed the climax of tension and fear that settled on the mansion, and let it build up among them only to see how soon and how easily it would implode.

Outside, however, regardless of man's twisted schemes and tricks, nature tranquilly went on its way towards the first showers of clouds amassed in the dark-blue sky, forecasting rain for the next day and tension between the mansion's inhabitants at having to remain cloistered among themselves – unless the wind that ran against the building, whistling gloomily, was strong enough to shake the clouds away like thin black ribbons of smoke. Farther off from the house's grounds, the surrounding forest marked the limits on the known territories with shadows; a thin, vague, faint trickle of moonlight slid in through the mist like a silver thread stretching out; and then the glass blurred over with cold, and everything outside was grey again.

Within, the warm glow of the light on the pages of her latest case's record; the lamp was an old nineteenth-century gas one, and not at all unusual in the Sahani's household. It cast a golden gleam on the desk's red wood, like the trail swept by a firework stick, that immediately extinguishes in the darkness.

The silence was oppressive – the scrape of a pen occasionally taking notes repeated itself as the only sound to break through it. Sometimes, she fancied she heard footsteps in the background, in some far-away passage; and she looked up from her report and listened carefully – but the sounds (if there ever were any) did not reproduce, and everything lapsed again into silence.

From time to time, she would interrupt her work and lean her cheek on her palm, thinking, her mind wandering off in some la-la land of a sort. In such reverie, her object was ghostly figures tiptoeing down a corner and plotting tricks, as well as the memory of an involuntary kiss interrupted years in the past. Sometimes the two would melt together in the present time, or else in the anticipation of tomorrow morning, when, maybe, probably, there would be another letter to be found and Abhijeet would be studying it, carefully…

What she didn't know was that, at the very moment, Abhijeet was sitting with Rajat by the hearth in the library, just like he had sat with him last time; the seats only were reversed. He might have recognized the symptoms on Abhijeet's face as he talked with the lawyer; just like herself when he spoke with his colleague, he felt like his brains were turned inside out.

"I quite see what you mean," Abhijeet said when he had finished; he had just explained to him his own theory about the incidents and the poltergeist. "But you see the catch. It's as large as the Titanic." He pulled up a log from the grand basket beside the chimney and arranged it in the hearth. The fire sizzled and crackled.

"Yes," Rajat said thoughtfully. "It's impossible to miss, of course."Besides, I don't think we'll be able to get out of this without public revelation. There's been at least one murder attempt in this case, and if somebody really is killed – and I should tend to think that's our culprit's final aim – scandal with be unavoidable. Even if we try to cover it up, it will only call more attention onto the matter."

" And,I'm afraid your study will suffer then," Abhijeet continued he added with a smile that only half apologized.

"Maybe. But nothing compared to what you can hurt."

The fire cast a reddish glow on Rajat's chiseled features, like a statue of marble.

"It's as large as the Titanic," the lawyer dropped casually.

" Yes, it is."

Later that night, after he'd wished Rajat goodnight and was walking up to his room, he was stricken by a fancy to go see Tarika and tell her of his colleague's theory. It wouldn't be so much of a detour – their bedrooms were on the same floor, on corridors symmetrically opposed not far from the grand staircase. Only halfway through he paused, thinking maybe she had gone to sleep already – it was way past midnight; but as he approached he saw the thin slit of light under the door.

He rapped on it softly. "Tarika? It's me. Can I come in? I've heard of new developments to tell you about…" No answer – maybe she was so absorbed by her work she hadn't heard him. He knocked, a little louder. "Tarika?"

Silence again. His throat stuck. Blindly, his hands searched for the handle – found it, turned it, the door wasn't locked. He opened abruptly and stepped in.

Tarika was slumped on her desk, her head pillowed in her folded arms. Her raven-black hair scattered amidst the piles of paperwork she had obviously been studying. She was fast asleep.

He sighed with relief. For a moment he'd thought – never mind. She didn't so much as stir when he closed the door and approached her, his shoes creaking on the parquet slits, and he must be badly sleep-deprived himself because even sound asleep and slumped on her desk, even with shadows under her eyes, even half-drooling onto her papers, she was still an angel on earth. She looked younger in sleep.

She slumbered on while he scooped her gently up in his arms, and actually purred and cradled against him as he carried her over to the bed. He laid her delicately down, taking care of her head, and her hand grasped at the shoulder of his jacket for a second, then let go. She hadn't stopped sleeping – she was probably lacking rest very much, what with touring the corridors at night, running after an unmatchable lunatic, classifying anonymous letters in the daytime, and plotting strategies. And dealing with him.

He flung a blanket over her body and she mumbled something indistinct under her breath. By the time he bent to her, whatever she'd said had reduced to peaceful breathing. She turned on her side and huddled lazily into the cover, curling up in a ball like a cat.

One shouldn't be allowed to be so beautiful.

He watched her a moment more, then turned all the lights off and exited the room.

Tarika made no observation in the morning. If she had felt any surprise at waking up on her bed, fully dressed, curled up under a blanket, while she had fallen asleep amidst the papers on her desk, she showed no sign of it.

.

The next day evening, Tarika stood at the front door, of which only one pane was open whilst she lean against the other, and watched thoughtfully outside. The sun had set some time before, just atop the hills on her right, and the sky in that corner was a light azure, still drenched in the last rays of the drowning light.

Farther down south, black clouds were gathering and stretching out upwards; they already darkened the sky so deeply the line of the mountains was hardly discernible – only a handful of stray lights from a distant town ascertained the presence of a ground there. The separation between the clear blue firmament on one side and those heavy black clouds on the other, standing out sharply in dusk, receded every second; rolling, they devoured space towards the point where the sun had sunk.

Northwards, dark clouds were equally assembling, so tightly they spread like a misty curtain over the hills: slowly but surely, the two masses advanced towards one another to close around the clearer blue – thinner clouds already intertwined in that interval, threading together like masterly-worked pieces of black lace. Sometimes, their top half cleared into white, touched with gold, when the last lingering remains of sunlight lit them from behind.

The air was rainy and heavy, the atmosphere charged with that electricity that foretells a storm. Lightening was already at work in the southern corner; short but dazzling streaks of silver flashed against the black skyline, and they were, after a few seconds' wait, followed by the trembling roll of thunder. It must be raining there, and during the night, in all likelihood, the wind would pull the storm in their own direction.

Tarika shuddered with cold, got back inside, and closed the door.

The tension and pressure built up gradually, and it was a little after ten, while she was working at her desk, that the skies finally opened with a thundering crack. She hastily closed her window, which she had left open, and in doing so she glanced outside: the black, lead-like clouds looming over the entire horizon, the rustle of trees' branches shaken by the wind, the first drops crashing onto the windowpane, and their rapid acceleration to drop every sound, eventually, into the senseless sound of rain coming down.

* * *

><p>Hope you like it, if not mention in the review section. :)<p>

P.S: the last whole description thing is borrowed from many of the mystery and horror novels.


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